THE

Statutes at Large;

BEING

A COLLECTION

OF ALL THE

LAWS OF VIRGINIA,

FROM THE

FIRST SESSION OF THE LEGISLATURE,

IN THE YEAR 1619.

PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO AN ACT OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

OF VIRGINIA, PASSED ON THE FIFTH DAY OF FEBRUARY,

ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND EIGHT.

::

VOLUME XII.

:*:*:*:-

By WILLIAM WALLER HENING.

"The Laws of a country are necessarily connected with every thing be-

longing to the people of it: so that a thorough knowledge of them, and

of their progress would inform us of every thing that was most use-

ful to be known about them; and one of the greatest imperfections

of historians in general, is owing to their ignorance of law "

PRIESTLEY'S LECT. ON HIST. VOL. I. pa. 149.

We, Robert G. Scott, and William Robertson, members of the Executive Council of Virginia, do hereby certify, that the laws contained in the twelfth volume of HENING's Statutes at Large, have been by us, examined and compared with the originals from which they were taken, and have been found truly and accurately printed, except as to the following list of errata, to the number of twenty-seven. Given under our hands this 8th day of November, 1823.

ROBERT G. SCOTT,
WM. ROBERTSON.

Page 20, line 4 from bottom, should be top line of page 21.

13 from top, insert " of" between "board" and " any."

43,

4

strike out "to" after "join."

for "hose" read "house."

137,

138,

4

for "parency" read " parcenery."

143, 3

after the word "kin" strike out " shall."

325, 10

426,

24 from top, for "fund" read " funds."

449,

262, 18 from bottom, for "handicaft" read "handycraft."

397, in the title, for "rement" read "regiment."

8 from bottom, for "mistate," read "mistake."

for the second "it" read "is."

for "o" read "of."

for "issued" read "issues."

TO THE

Twelfth Volume of the Statutes at Large.

THE contents of this Volume are very interesting. Among the acts of 1785 and 1786, will be found, passed into laws, the most important bills, reported to the legislature in 1779, by the committee of revisors appointed by the act of 1776.* At the session of 1786, an act passed, appointing a committee to take into consideration such of the bills, contained in the revisal, prepared and reported by the committee, appointed for that purpose, in the year 1776, as had not been enacted into laws. This was superseded by the act of 1789, concerning a new edition of the laws, which was the foundation of the revisal of 1792.