government.

[Sidenote: Powers of the vestry.]
It was the vestry, thus constituted, that apportioned the parish
taxes, appointed the churchwardens, presented the minister for
induction into office, and acted as overseers of the poor. The
minister presided in all vestry meetings. His salary was paid in
tobacco, and in 1696 it was fixed by law at 16,000 pounds of tobacco
yearly. In many parishes the churchwardens were the collectors of the
parish taxes. The other officers, such as the sexton and the parish
clerk, were appointed either by the minister or by the vestry.

With the local government thus administered, we see that the larger
part of the people had little directly to do. Nevertheless in these
small neighbourhoods government was in full sight of the people. Its
proceedings went on in broad daylight and were sustained by public
sentiment. As Jefferson said, "The vestrymen are usually the most
discreet farmers, so distributed through the parish that every part of
it may be under the immediate eye of some one of them. They are well
acquainted with the details and economy of private life, and they
find sufficient inducements to execute their charge well, in their
philanthropy, in the approbation of their neighbours, and the
distinction which that gives them." [8]

[Footnote 8: See Howard, _Local Constitutional History of the United
States_, vol. i. p. 122.]

[Sidenote: The county was the unit of representation.]
The difference, however, between the New England township and the
Virginia parish, in respect of self-government, was striking enough.