besides many thousand acres of waste land high up in
the country.

Why have not the prosecutions, neglected in Colonel Nicholson's
time, been continued since?

Colonel Nicholson was the first Governor of Virginia who directed
prosecutions for arrears of quit-rents, beginning with Colonel
Laurence Smith. The case was ready for trial but the Governor came
to England, and the case was afterwards compounded for a small
matter.

Have any parcels of land been seized for the King's use, for want of
planting or failure to pay quit-rents?

Small parcels of land are granted away every court for not being
planted or seated according to law, but no land has at any time been
seized to the King's use for not paying of quit-rents.

Are negro servants included in the persons who, if imported, make
"rights" to grant of land. [?]

Negro servants give a right to land to those who import them, who
thereupon take up land, contrary to the true intention of seating
the country; but the practice being general, to the advantage of
certain persons, no notice is taken of it.

Have you ever known of false certificates of rights, and how have
the parties guilty thereof been punished?

I have heard of many false certificates of rights; the practice is
common but little regarded, being of no prejudice to any private
person.

If your methods be followed, in what county should a beginning be
made?

... if my proposals were adopted, I answer that the members of
Council have large tracts of land in most of the counties, for which
they are in great arrears of quit-rent. It is advisable to make a
beginning with some of them and to empower a person uninterested in
the county to demand the arrears due to the King. These will amount
to a considerable sum and will increase the King's revenue in
Virginia yearly. If the patentees refuse to pay the arrears, some
hundred thousand acres of land will revert to the crown, to be more
carefully disposed of in future.

The Board of Trade continued the search for additional opinions about
the land system in Virginia. Questions were asked individually of Henry
Hartwell, a Councilor of Virginia, and Edward Chilton, Attorney-General
in Virginia from 1691 to 1694. Then Hartwell and Chilton collaborated
with James Blair, Councilor and Commissary of the Anglican Church in
V