the valuation of slaves executed; for the use of the Potowmack and James river companies; the post at the Point of Fork, and the lunatic hospital. Seventh, Warrants issued after the thirty-first of December, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, for the wages and salaries of the officers of civil government, including the general assembly: Any surplus to go to the sinking fund. The money arising from the tax on law process, recording of wills and deeds, the seal of the commonwealth, and the register's office, after the first day of November, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, shall be appropriated to the payment of the salaries and allowances to the judges of the superior courts: Any surplus to go to the sinking fund. The money arising from the act, intituled, "An act imposing new taxes," shall be appropriated to the wages and salaries of the officers of civil government: Any surplus to go to the sinking fund. Any warrants heretofore issued, or which shall hereafter issue, for the salaries of the officers of civil goverment; for interest on the certificates granted to the officers and soldiers, land and naval, on continental and state establishment, for their arrears of pay and depreciation; for pensions for the contingent expences of goverment; for the interest of the state loan office debt, and of the paper money of this state funded; to venire-men and witnesses in criminal prosecutions; to apprehenders of horsestealers; for slaves executed; for the shares in the Potowmack and James river companies; for the post at the Point of Fork, and the lunatic hospital; shall be receivable as specie in discharge of any of the taxes which became due on the first day of November, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, or which shall become due before the first day of November, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine; and the several sheriffs and collectors, upon the payment thereof into the treasury, shall have credit for the same accordingly. Provided, That nothing herein contained, shall be construed to affect the taxes to be paid to, and collected by, the clerks of the several courts.

V. But inasmuch as the funds in this act assigned for the payment of the wages and salaries to the officers of civil government, the post at the Point of Fork, the lunatic hospital, the scouts and rangers, and the shares in the James river and Potowmack companies,

may not be productive early enough for those purposes respectively, Be it enacted, That if the said funds should not be productive as aforesaid, it shall be lawful for the executive to direct the treasurer to borrow the same out of any other fund, and to replace the money so borrowed as soon as possible, retaining a sum sufficient for the discharge of the salaries of the judges, in preference to every other payment charged on the said fund; provided they shall be of opinion that any deficiency will accrue in the funds assigned for that purpose.

VI. And be it further enacted, That all the revenue arising from the duties arising from tonnage, and merchandise imported, and tobacco exported, shall remain appropriated as heretofore, until the cessation thereof under the authority of this commonwealth: And should there be any surplus, the same shall go in aid of the sinking fund.

VII. And that the said fund may receive every possible increase, Be it further enacted, that the executive shall cause warrants to be issued for the interest accruing on all military certificates, which heretofore have, or hereafter shall, by any means come into the treasury; and that they direct the said warrants to be applied to the purposes of the sinking fund, in such manner as to them shall seem best. Warrants heretofore granted to the foreign creditors, by order of the executive, and oharged upon the impost, shall be admitted in payment of any bonds for duties on goods imported, except the duties on tonnage, and the duty of two per cent, on merchandise imported in vessels belonging to subjects or citizens of any state or power not in commercial treaty with the United States. The tobacco destroyed by fire in Byrd's warehouse shall be paid, agreeable to the report of the commissioners appointed to ascertain the loss, out of the money arising from the surplus of the inspection of tobacco, in such dividends as the state of the treasury will, in the opinion of the treasurer, admit.

VIII. So much of all and every act and acts, as comes within the purview of this act, shall be, and is, hereby repealed.

CHAP. LXXXI.

An act concerning the erection of the district of Kentucky into an independent state.

[Passed the 29th of December 1788.]

1. WHEREAS it is represented to this general asEurther prosembly, that it is the desire of the good people in the vision for e rection of dis- district of Kentucky, that the same should be separatrict of Ken ted from this commonwealth whereof it is a part, and tucky into an be formed into an independent member of the Ameriindependent state. can confederacy; and it is judged that such a partition of the commonwealth is rendered expedient, by the remote situation of the more fertile and populous part of the said district, and by the interjacent natural impediments to a convenient and regular communication therewith: Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that in the month of May next, on the respective court days of the counties within the said district, and at the respective places of holding courts therein, representatives, to continue in appointment for one year, and to compose convention with the powers and for the purposes hereinafter mentioned, shall be elected by the free male inhabitants of each county above the age of twenty-one years, in like manner as delegates to the general assembly have been elected within the said district, in the proportions following: In the county of Jefferson, shall be elected five representatives; in the county of Nelson, five representatives; in the county of Fayette, five representatives; in the county of Bourbon, five representatives; in the county of Mercer, five representatives; in the county of Lincoln, five representatives; in the county of Madison, five representatives; in the county of Woodford, five representatives; and in the county of Mason, five representatives: Provided, that no free male inhabitant above the age of twentyone years shall vote in any other except the county in which he resides. That full opportunity may be given to the good people of exercising their right of suffrage on an occasion so interesting to them, each of the officers holding such elections shall continue the same from day to day, passing over Sunday, for five

days, including the first day; and shall cause this act to be read on each day immediately preceding the opening of the election, at the door of the courthouse, or other convenient place. Each of the said officers shall deliver to each person duly elected a representative, a certificate of his election, and shall moreover transmit a general return to the clerk of the supreme court, to be by him laid before the convention. For every neglect of any of the duties hereby enjoined on such officer, he shall forfeit one hundred pounds, to be recovered by action of debt, by any person suing for the same. The said convention shall be held at Danville, on the twentieth day of July next, and shall and may proceed, after chosing a president, and other proper officers, and settling the proper rules of proceeding, to consider and determine whether it be expedient for, and be the will of, the good people of the said district, that the same be erected into an independent state, on the terms and conditions following: (First) That Conditions. the boundary between the proposed state and Virginia shall remain the same as at present separates the district from the residue of the commonweaith: (Second) That the proposed state shall take upon itself a just proportion of the public and domestic debt of this commonwealth: (Third) That all private rights and interests in lands within the said district, derived from the laws of Virginia prior to such separation, shall remain valid and secure under the laws of the proposed state, and shall be determined by the laws now existing in this state: (Fourth) That the lands within the proposed state of non-resident proprietors shall not in any case be taxed higher than the lands of residents at any time prior to the admission of the proposed state to a vote by its delegates in congress, where such non-residents reside out of the United States, nor at any time either before or after such admission, where such nonresidents reside in this commonwealth, within which this stipulation shall be reciprocal; or where such nonresidents reside within any other of the United States, which shall declare the same to be reciprocal within its limits, nor shall a neglect of cultivation or improvement of any land within either the proposed state or this commonwealth, belonging to non-residents, citizens of the other, subject such non-residents to forfeitare or other penalty within the term of six years af

ter the admission of the said state into the federal union: (Fifth) That no grant of land, nor land-warrant to be issued by the proposed state, shall interfere with any warrant heretofore issued from the land-office of Virginia, which shall be located or laid within the said district, now liable thereto on or before the first day of September, one thousand seven hundred and ninety. (Sixth) That the unlocated lands within the said district, which stand appropriated by the laws of this commonwealth to individuals, or descriptions of individuals, for military or other services, shall be exempt from the disposition of the proposed state, and shall remain subject to be disposed of by the commonwealth of Virginia, according to such appropriation, until the congress of the Uuited States shall receive the proposed state into the federal union; and thereafter the residue of all lands remaining within the limits of the said district shall be subject to the disposition of the proposed state; saving and reserving to the officers and solders of the Virginia lines, on state and continental establishment, their representatives and assignees, their rights to lands under the several donations of this commonwealth, who shall not be restrained or limited as to time in making their respective locations, or compleating their surveys by any thing in this act contained, nor by any act of the proposed state, without the future consent of the legislature of Virginia. (Seventh) That the use and navigation of the river Ohio, so far as the territory of the proposed state, or the territory which shall remain within the limits of this commonwealth lies thereon, shall be free and common to the citizens of the United States; Provided however, that five members assembled shall be a sufficient number to adjourn from day to day, and to issue writs for supplying vacancies which may happen from deaths, resignations, or refusals to act; a majority of the whole shall be a sufficient number to choose a president, settle the proper rules of proceeding, authorise any number to summon a convention during a recess, and to act in all other instances where a greater number is not expressly required; two thirds of the whole shall be a sufficient number to determine on the expediency of forming the said district into an independent state on the aforesaid terms and conditions; provided that a majority of the whole number to be elected concur therein.