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Session
Laws
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Dressing Victuals, or any other Domestick Business, at such Quarter,
for the Use of the Overseer, Servants, or Slaves, there employed.
And Be It Further Enacted, by the Authority aforesaid, That the
Vestry of every Parish within this Province, shall, on or before the
First Day of July next, and on or before the First Day of June
Yearly, in every other Year than this present Year, during the Con-
tinuance of this Act, lay out their respective Parishes into Precincts,
and appoint One sufficient Person in each Precinct, to examine and
enquire of the Names and Number of the Persons hereby allowed to
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p. 3
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tend Tobacco, and the Crops of the several Planters within the said
Precinct, and the Number of Plants growing on any and every
Plantation or Plantations within the same: And on or before the
Twentieth Day of the Month of July, in this present, and every other
Year, during the Continuance of this Act, to begin to count the Plants,
and cut, or cause to be cut up and destroyed, all Stalks, Slips, and
Suckers, within such Precinct, and to proceed therein as there shall
be Occasion; which Persons so appointed, are hereby enjoyned care-
fully to review and examine all the several Fields and Places whereon
Tobacco shall be tended, within their several Precincts, Two respec-
tive Times, at the least, after the Plants thereon growing, have been
by them counted; and as often thereafter, as they shall judge neces-
sary, in order to discover whether any Slips or Suckers, shall be
turned out or tended from the Stalks, whence any Tobacco-Plant
hath been before cut; and shall take an Oath (or Affirmation, if a
Quaker,) before some Justice of the Peace of the County wherein
they reside; which Oath (or Affirmation, if a Quaker,) the said
Justice is hereby impowered to administer in the Words follow-
ing, viz.
I A. B. do swear, (or affirm) That I will carefully, diligently, and
truly examine and enquire into the Names and Numbers of all Per-
sons allowed to tend Tobacco within my Precinct; and truly and faith-
fully number and count the Tobacco-Plants growing, or that shall be
tended on every Plantation within the same, according to the Direc-
tions and true Intent and Meaning of the Act of Assembly, Intituled.
An Act, for Improving the Staple of Tobacco; and for continuing
Part of An Act, ascertaining the Gauge and Tare of Tobacco-Hogs-
heads; and to prevent cropping, cutting, and defacing Tobacco taken
on board Ships or Vessels upon Freight; and for laying Impositions
on Tobacco per the Hogshead, for the Support of Government; and
for the encouraging Settlements in this Province, by ascertaining
the Manner of paying his Lordship's Alienation Fines and Quit-
Rents, for the Term therein proposed; and for the taking off the
Three-pence per Hogshead formerly raised for the Publick Charge,
to the best of my Knowledge, either by counting the said Tobacco-
Plants, growing in the several Hills, Plant by Plant, or otherwise,
according to the best of my Understanding; and faithfully and
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