ht and sold the royal quit-rents.[351:A]

Upon the election of burgesses there was commonly held a court, called a
court of claims, where all who had any claims against the public might
present them to the burgesses, together with any propositions or
grievances, "all which the burgesses carry to the assembly." There was
at that early day much confusion in the laws, and it was difficult to
know what laws were in force and what were not. All causes were decided
in the county court or in the general court. The county court consisted
of eight or ten gentlemen, receiving their commission from the governor,
who renewed it annually. They met once a month, or once in two months,
and had cognizance of all causes exceeding in value twenty shillings, or
two hundred pounds of tobacco. These country gentlemen, having no
education in law, not unfrequently fell into mistakes in substance and
in form. The insufficiency of these courts was now growing more apparent
than formerly, since the old stock of gentry, who were educated in
England, were better acquainted with law and with the business of the
world than their sons and grandsons, who were brought up in Virginia,
and commonly knew only reading, writing, and arithmetic, and were not
very proficient in them.

The general court, so called because it had jurisdiction of causes from
all parts of the colony, was held twice a year, in April and October, by
the governor and council as judges, at Jamestown. This court was never
commissioned, but grew up by custom or usurpation; from it there was no
appeal, except in cases of over three hundred pounds sterling value, to
the king, which was for most persons impracticable, on account of the
distance and the expensiveness. Virginia appears to have been the only
colony where the executive constituted the supreme court. The general
court tried all causes of above sixteen pounds sterling, or sixteen
hundred pounds of tobacco in value, and all appeals from the county
courts, and it had cognizance of all causes in chancery, in king's
bench, the common pleas, the exchequer, the admiralty, and spirituality.
The forms of proceeding in the general court were quite irregular. The
duties of the secretary were as multifarious as those of the governor;
it was, however, for the most part a sinecure, the business being
performed by a clerk, styled the clerk of the general court, who also
employed one or two clerks under him. The secretary, who was properly
t