in the habit of acquiring lands without expense, by
means of a warrant of a survey without a patent. Dinwiddie found a
million of unpatented acres thus possessed, and he established, with the
advice of the council, a fee of a pistole (equivalent to three dollars
and sixty cents) for every seal annexed to a grant. Against this measure
the assembly, in December, 1753, passed strong resolutions, and declared
that whoever should pay that fee should be considered a betrayer of the
rights of the people; and they sent the attorney-general, Peyton
Randolph, as their agent, to England, with a salary of two thousand
pounds, to procure redress. The board of trade, after virtually deciding
in favor of Dinwiddie, recommended a compromise of the dispute, and
advised him to reinstate Randolph in the office of attorney-general, as
the times required harmony and mutual confidence. The assembly appear to
have been much disturbed upon a small occasion. During Randolph's
absence Dinwiddie wrote to a correspondent in England: "I have had a
great deal of trouble and uneasiness from the factious disputes and
violent heats of a most impudent, troublesome party here, in regard to
that silly fee of a pistole; they are very full of the success of their
party, which I give small notice to."

The natural prejudice felt by the aristocracy of Virginia against
Dinwiddie, as an untitled Scotchman, was increased by a former
altercation with him. When, in 1741, he was made surveyor-general of the
customs, he was appointed, as his predecessors had been, a member of the
several councils of the colonies. Gooch obeyed the order; but the
council, prompted by their old jealousy of the surveyor-general's
interfering with their municipal laws, and still more by their
overweening exclusiveness, refused to permit him to act with them,
either in the council or on the bench. The board of trade decided the
controversy in favor of Dinwiddie.[456:A]

It was during Dinwiddie's administration that the name of George
Washington began to attract public attention. The curiosity of his
admirers has traced the family back to the Conquest. Sir William
Washington, of Packington, in the County of Kent, married a sister of
George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and favorite of Charles the First.
Lieutenant-Colonel James Washington, taking up arms in the royal cause,
lost his life at the siege of Pontefract Castle. Sir Henry Washington,
son and heir of Sir William, distinguished h