4534. LAW, Virginia's Revised Code.—[further continued] .
We were employed in
this work (revising Virginia laws) from January,
1777, to February, 1779, when we met at
Williamsburg, that is to say, Mr. Pendleton,
Mr. Wythe and myself; and meeting day by day,
we examined critically our several parts, sentence
by sentence, scrutinizing and amending,
until we had agreed on the whole. We then
returned home, had fair copies made of our
several parts, which were reported to the General
Assembly, June 18, 1779, by Mr. Wythe
and myself, Mr. Pendleton's residence being
distant, and he having authorized us by letter
to declare his approbation. We had, in this
work, brought so much of the Common Law as
it was thought necessary to alter, all the British
statutes from Magna Charta to the present day,
and all the laws of Virginia, from the establishment
of our Legislature, in the 4th Jac. 1. to
the present time, which we thought should be
retained, within the compass of one hundred
and twenty-six bills, making a printed folio of
ninety pages only. Some bills were taken out,
occasionally, from time to time, and passed;
but the main body of the work was not entered
on by the Legislature until after the general
peace, in 1785, when, by the unwearied exertions
of Mr. Madison, in opposition to the
endless quibbles, chicaneries, perversions, vexations
and delays of lawyers and demi-lawyers,
most of the bills were passed by the Legislature,
with little alteration.—
Autobiography. Washington ed. i, 44.
Ford ed., i, 61.
(1821)
