Introduction.              xliii



       expressed. (Viz) My now dwelling howse in Little Brittaine aforesd fowre
       hundred Acres of Land next thereunto adioyning. Also one Black-browne Cow
       (named Browning) cropd both eares. Also one reddish-browne Cow (named
       Chesnutt) slitt both eares. Also one other reddish-browne Cow (named
       Cherry) & one Black Cow (named Collier) both of my own proper marke.
       Allso one Red Heifer, cropd ye left eare, wth two slitts in ye Crop & a hole in
       ye right eare, & underkeeld. Allso one other yeareling blackish heifer of my
       owne marke. Aliso Two Cow calues of this prent yeare of my owne marke
       (the right eare being slitt att ye deliuery) wth all the encrease”. Bretton reserved
       for himself for his lifetime all the milk of the cows and all the bull calves.
       He laid aside for Mrs. Jay his “owne best Bed all its furniture” and half
       of all his other household goods. Of these goods he says he had given the
       trustees a list: too bad that that list is missing. Furthermore, she might,
       within a year of his death, take half of all the hogs he left at his death. If she
       died first, what he has designated for her was to be used to make portions for
       any children they might have. This document is dated July 10, 165 1: another
       of the same date gives her full power and control over an annuity of £20
       sterling coming to her from Captain George Evelin of Virginia (post, 684-
       685). One of the first entries in the 1660 proceedings after the break being
       filled by this appendix tells about this annuity (Archives, XLI, pp. 343-344).
       On October I I, I649, Captain Evelin acknowledged that Mrs. Jay had paid him
       £120 lawful money of England. For this, he bound himself to pay her every
       year in Virginia £20 sterling, during her lifetime. “And because money is
       scarce in Virginia [as it was in Maryland, too], I doe oblige myself to pay
       unto the sd Mrs Jay, soe much goods, as she shall like of” amounting to £20
       sterling. If Mrs. Jay should return to England within three years. Evelin was
       to pay her, in England, the £120 sterling. If he should fail to pay her what he
       had agreed, he was to make over to her considerable land in “Greendall old
       ifort or Middle Plantation worth £20 sterling. Middle Plantation was, of
       course, Williamsburg. Bretton, in agreeing that Temperance should control
       her own annuity, was really and unusually generous. It was a well-known and
       very firmly settled point of English common law that whatever personal prop
       erty a woman brought with her into a marriage belonged to her husband, and
       he need not even leave her at his death property that she had brought him or
       money that she herself had earned. Temperance and William did get married,
       and, not much later, she joined him in deeding land for the erection of a
       Catholic church (Archives, XLI, 531).
         In closing, the editor must express the real gratitude she feels to the two law
       yer members of the Publications Committee. Mr. George Ross Veazey and
       Col. Harrison Tilghman both answered questions that had arisen in the edi
       torial mind on legal points, and so helped in the accuracy of the text and the
       introduction.