14688196. A Bill concerning Sheriffs, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that each county court shall, annually, in the months of July, or August, recommend three persons, named in the commission of the peace, one of whom shall be commissioned by the Governor, or Commander in Chief, with advice of the Council, on the twenty fourth, or twenty fifth, day of October following, to execute the office of Sheriff of such county, for...
14688297. A Bill for Licensing Counsel, Attorneys at Law, and Proctors, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that no person, except the Attorney General, shall be permitted by any court to practice therein as a Counsel, Attorney at law, or Proctor, unless he shall heretofore have obtained a license, in the manner prescribed by the law then in force, or until he shall obtain a license, in writing, from three of those, who shall be at that time, Judges of the High...
14688398. A Bill Prescribing the Oath of Fidelity, and the Oaths of Certain Public Officers, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that every person, by law required to give assurance of fidelity, shall, for that purpose, take an oath in this form, “I do declare myself a citizen of the commonwealth of Virginia. I relinquish and renounce the character of subject or citizen of any Prince, or other state, whatsoever, and abjure all allegiance, which may be claimed by such Prince, or...
14688499. A Bill to Prevent the Sale of Public Offices, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that if any person shall, for valuable consideration, dispose of any office which concerns the receipt, or the controlment or auditing accounts, of the public revenue, taxes, or duties; the office of Attorney for the commonwealth, clerk of the Council, or of any other public board, clerk of a Court of Record, sheriff, Naval-Officer, Advocate, Register, or...
146885100. A Bill Directing the Method of Proceeding upon Impeachments, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that the process against any person impeached by resolution of the House of Delegates shall be summons, attachments and distress, bearing teste, the first of them the day of emanation, and the others the return-day of the process preceeding, and shall be issued and signed by the clerk of the said court. A copy of the articles of impeachment shall be...
146886101. A Bill for Regulating Proceedings in Courts of Equity, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that original and subsequent process to bring any person to answer a bill, petition, or information, exhibited in the High Court of Chancery, shall run in the name of the commonwealth, bear teste, in the name of the first Judge of the court, the last preceeding return-day, be issued and signed by the clerk, and be returnable to the first or seventeenth...
146887102. A Bill for Regulating Proceedings in Courts of Common Law, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that all writs, given by the twenty-fourth chapter of the statutes, made in the thirteenth year of the reign of King Edward, the first, of England, and heretofore in use, shall continue to be used, in the same manner as if that statute were hereby re-enacted. Actions of account may be maintained against the representatives of deceased guardians, bailiffs,...
146888103. A Bill Directing the Method of Proceeding against, and Trying Free Persons Charged with Certain Crimes, 18 June … (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that any free person, brought before a Justice of the Peace of a county, and, by the testimony of another free person, charged with treason, or felony, done in such county, shall be committed to jail, by warrant of such Justice, who shall by his precept, order the sheriff to summon the other Justices to meet, in the court-house, at an appointed time, not...
146889104. A Bill Directing the Method of Trying Slaves Charged with Treason or Felony, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that the Justices of every county shall be Justices of Oyer and Terminer, for trying slaves charged with treason or felony: Which trials shall be by five at the least, without juries, upon legal evidence, at such times as the sheriffs shall appoint, not being less than five, nor more than ten, days after the offenders shall have been committed to jail. No...
146890105. A Bill for Reforming the Method of Proceeding in Writs of Right, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that, for trial of disputed titles to lands in a more simple mode than that which hath most commonly been used of late, the claimant or demandant of an estate in fee simple may sue forth, against the possessor or tenant, a writ of praecipe quod reddat; which issuing from the General Court, shall be in this form, or to this effect: “The commonwealth of...
146891106. A Bill concerning Partitions and Joint Rights and Obligations, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that all joint tenants or tenants in common who now are, or hereafter shall be of any estates of inheritance in their own rights, or in the right of their wives, and all joint tenants or tenants in common who now hold, or hereafter shall hold, jointly, or in common, for term of life or years, [and joint tenants, or tenants in common, where one or some of...
146892107. A Bill for the Speedy Determination of Suits Wherein Foreigners Are Parties, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that a suit, commenced in the High Court of Chancery, or General Court, by or against a party, who is no citizen of the commonwealth, shall be heard or tried in the term to which the process shall be returned, regularly executed, or so soon afterwards as may be; and, to this end, subsequent process to compel appearance may be returnable to any day of a...
146893108. A Bill for Speedy Recovery of Money Due from Certain Persons to the Public, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that when any person, who hath received or shall receive public money from the Treasurer, for recruiting or paying the army, building, rigging, or furnishing ships or vessels of war, erecting fortifications, buying clothes, provision, arms, or ammunition, erecting or prosecuting public manufactories, or for other public use, hath not applied, or shall not...
146894109. A Bill for Recovering Demands of Small Value in a Summary Way, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that any debt, or penalty, amounting to more than twenty five shillings, or two hundred pounds of tobacco, and not exceeding one hundred shillings, or eight hundred pounds of tobacco, may be demanded, by petition, to the court of a county, city, or borough. The clerk of the peace shall draw the petition, stating therein how the debt became due, or by...
146895110. A Bill Providing That Actions Popular, Prosecuted by Collusion, Shall Be No Bar to Those Which Be Pursued with Good … (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that if any person hereafter sue with good faith, any action popular, and any defendant, in the same action, plead any manner of recovery by action popular, in bar of the said action, or that he before that time barred any plaintiff in any such action popular, then the plaintiff in the action taken with good faith may aver, that the said recovery in the...
146896111. A Bill for Preventing Vexatious and Malicious Prosecutions and Moderating Amercements, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that every action at common law, or suit in equity, commenced in the name of a person not residing in Virginia, unless he be employed abroad in the service of the commonwealth, or of the United States of America, shall be dismissed, if security be not given with the clerk of the court from whence the process shall issue, or wherein it shall be depending,...
146897112. A Bill Providing a Means to Help and Speed Poor Persons in Their Suits, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Where it is intended that indifferent justice shall be had and administered to all the citizens of this commonwealth, as well to the poor as rich, which poor citizens be not of ability, nor power, to sue according to the laws of this land for redress of injuries and wrongs to them daily done, as well concerning their persons and their inheritance, as other causes; For remedy whereof, in behalf...
146898113. A Bill Providing that an Infant May Sue by His Next Friend, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
In every case where such as be within age may sue, it is enacted by the General Assembly, that their next friends shall be admitted to sue for them. Report Report of the Committee of Revisors Appointed by the General Assembly of Virginia in MDCCLXXVI , Richmond, 1784 , p. 80. Text as adopted is in Hening, William W. Hening, The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia...
146899114. A Bill Declaring When the Death of Persons Absenting Themselves Shall be Presumed, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that any person absenting himself beyond sea, or elsewhere, for seven years successively, shall be presumed to be dead, in any case wherein his death shall come in question, unless proof be made that he was alive within that time. But an estate recovered in any such case, if in a subsequent action or suit the person presumed to be dead shall be proved to...
146900115. A Bill Prescribing a Method of Protesting Inland Bills of Exchange and Allowing Assignees of Obligations to Bring … (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that if a bill of exchange, for the sum of five pounds, or upwards, dated at any place in Virginia, drawn upon a person at any other place therein expressed, to be for value received, and payable at a certain number of days, weeks, or months after date, being presented to the person upon whom it shall be drawn, shall not be accepted by subscribing his...
146901116. A Bill for Limitation of Actions, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that no person shall maintain any action or suit for the recovery of lands or tenements, if such action or suit be not commenced within twenty years next after the cause thereof shall have arisen, unless the plaintiff or demandant, or the person from whom the right is derived were, at the time such cause of action or suit arose, under the age of twenty...
146902117. A Bill for Granting Attachments against the Estates of Debtors Removing Privately or Absconding, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that when any person shall privately remove out of the county he had resided in, or shall abscond so that he cannot be served with process, a Justice of the Peace of the same county, at the request of any to whom he who shall so remove or abscond is indebted, shall and may, by his precept, returnable to his next county court, command the sheriff to attach...
146903118. A Bill concerning Inquests, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that the sheriff of that county in which the General Court shall sit, shall, before every term, summon twenty four good and lawful men, being freeholders in the commonwealth, which he shall have power to do, not only in his own county, but in all places out of it, within the distance of thirty miles from that in which the court shall be held, to appear...
146904119. A Bill Permitting Those Who Will Not Take Oaths to Be Otherwise Qualified, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that any person refusing to take an oath, and declaring religious scruples to be the true and only reason of such refusal, if he will use the solemnity and ceremony, and repeat the formulary, observed on similar occasions, by those of the church, or religious society he professeth himself to be a member of, or to join in communion with, shall thereupon be...
146905120. A Bill for Regulating the Commencement of the Year, and the Computation of Time, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Whereas although the supputation of the year of our Lord, according to which the year beginneth on the twenty-fifth day of March, hath, since the year one thousand seven hundred and fiftyone, been discontinued by the people of this commonwealth, yet the supputation used instead of it, conformable with the usage of all nations with whom they have commerce, hath not been adopted by a proper...
146906121. A Bill Allowing a Bill of Exceptions to Be Sealed, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
When one impleaded before any court, and in any cause, where appeal lies to a higher court, doth alledge an exception praying that the Justices will allow it, if they will not allow it and he that alledged the exception do write the same exception, and require that the Justices will put their seals in testimony thereof, the Justices or the greater part of them present shall so do; and if such...
146907122. A Bill for Enforcing Performance of Awards Made by Rule of Court, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that by consent of parties, either personally declared by them, or signified in writing sworn to be their act, by two subscribing witnesses, before a Court of Record, any suit between those parties, in their own rights, may, after issue joined, by rule of such court, be submitted to arbitrators, who shall return their award to the same court, to be there...
146908123. A Bill concerning Executions, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that every action of account render, debt, detinue, deceit, conspiracy, trespass with force and arms, or trespass upon the case, shall be commenced by suing forth the writ called capias ad respondendum, without an original writ or other precept before. Lands, tenements, and hereditaments shall and may by virtue of writs of fieri facias, be taken and sold...
146909124. A Bill concerning Rents and Distresses, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that any person to whom rent is or shall be due upon a lease for life, may bring an action of debt for such rent in like manner as he might have done if the rent had been reserved or become due upon a lease for years. A landlord, by action on the case, may recover a reasonable satisfaction for the use and occupation of tenements held and enjoyed by...
146910125. A Bill Providing Remedy and Punishment in Cases of Forcible Entries and Detainers, 18 June 1779 (Jefferson Papers)
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that none make any entry into any lands and tenements, or other possessions, whatsoever but in case where entry is given by the law; and in such case not with strong hand, nor with multitude of people, but only in peaceable and easy manner; and that none who shall have entered into the same in peaceable manner hold the same after with force. And if any do...