In the Current of the Revolution 123 



the extent of four hundred acres each. Tracts of land 

 were reserved as bounties for the Virginia troops, 

 both Continentals and militia. Each family of ac- 

 tual settlers was allowed a settlement right to four 

 hundred acres for the small sum of nine dollars, 

 and, if very poor, the land was given them on credit. 

 Every such settler also acquired a pre-emptive right 

 to purchase a thousand acres adjoining, at the regu- 

 lation State price, which was forty pounds, paper 

 money, or forty dollars in specie, for every hundred 

 acres. One peculiar provision was made necessary 

 by the system of settling in forted villages. Every 

 such village was allowed six hundred and forty 

 acres, which no outsider could have surveyed or 

 claim, for it was considered the property of the 

 townsmen, to be held in common until an equitable 

 division could be made; while each family likewise 

 had a settlement right to four hundred acres ad- 

 joining the village. The vacant lands were sold, 

 warrants for a hundred acres costing forty dollars 

 in specie ; but later on, toward the close of the war, 

 Virginia tried to buoy up her mass of depreciated 

 paper currency by accepting it nearly at par for land 

 warrants, thereby reducing the cost of these to less 

 than fifty cents for a hundred acres. No warrant 

 applied to a particular spot ; it was surveyed on any 

 vacant or presumably vacant ground. Each indi- 

 vidual had the surveying done wherever he pleased, 

 the county surveyor usually appointing some skilled 

 woodsman to act as his deputy. 



In the end the natural result of all this was to 



