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Under the military government instituted by Sir Thomas Dale after he arrived in Virginia in May 1611, military commanders were responsible for civil administration and local defense in the old and new Virginia settlements. Dale established at least five settlements by early in the 1610s, located from the present-day Richmond area to the Eastern Shore. Because no ecclesiastical courts existed in the colony, the governor and his Council proved and recorded wills and settled the estates of people who died. They also tried criminals and attended to all other business conducted by the various courts in England. By 1622, however, the population of the colony had grown to such an extent that early in the year, as the early American historian William Stith wrote in ....