expertly drawn family settlements, but which submitted without murmur to 
many an execrably concocted act of Parliament. In this age no Board of Trade 
would set itself up as schoolmaster in grammar and rhetoric. The reports of 
the crown law officers, in whom one might expect sensitivity to vague or inept 
modes of expression, are concerned almost exclusively with the larger questions 
of policy. On the rare occasions when these speak censoriously of clumsy 
or ambiguous provisions in colonial acts, the comment is a mere flourish before 
a coup de grace. 
The cases on which we possess the most details regarding the interpretation 
of colonial statutes were all litigated after the middle of the century. 
One of the most interesting, because it is one of the unusual instances of a 
Privy Council case cited as precedent in a provincial court, is Burwell et ux. 
v. Johnson et ux. (1762), where the meaning of a Virginia act of 1705 was in 
controversy. This act declared that all negro, mulatto, and Indian slaves "in 
all courts of judicature and other places . . . shall beheld, taken and adjudged 
to be real estate (and not chattels) and shall descend unto the heirs and widows 
of persons departing this life, according to the manner and custom of land of 
inheritance held in fee simple." 153 The real estate rule, however, was subject 
to various provisos, since the act stipulated certain circumstances under which 
slaves were to be deemed chattels, e.g., execution for debts, exemption from 
escheat in default of heirs, exemption from registration of alienations of realty, 
and finally for purposes of recovering possession. The peculiar agricultural 
problems of Virginia were recognized in a section which provided that in 
cases of intestacy slaves were to be inventoried and appraised. Each child was 
to receive an equal share of the sum total which the heir at law (to whom the 
slaves descended) was to pay. 
On November 18, 1725, one James Bray made a will devising all his lands 
and slaves to his grandson, another James Bray, in fee tail with remainder in 
tail to Thomas Bray (the father of grandson James). Shortly thereafter testator 
died. 
It is desirable to point out at this juncture that in 1727 there had been enacted 
a statute to explain and amend the legislation of 1705. 154 The most 
significant feature of this new act was a section specifically making slaves entailable 
as annexed to lands entailed, the purpose of this being to preserve 
slaves to the use and benefit of persons to whom lands might descend or be 
given or devised, so that estates could be properly improved. 
James Bray, the grandson, died without issue in 1744. By his will, made in 
that year, he devised and bequeathed all his estate, both real and personal, to 
his wife Frances. At the time of his death he was possessor of some slaves 
153 3 Herring, Stat, at Large Va., 333. 
154 4 ibid., 222.