Alexander Spotswood sued some members of the Second Colony, but not all. The number of Germans in total was put at seventy-odd by Spotswood, and at eighty by the Germans. But Spotswood only paid for the transportation of forty-eight of these people. His partners, including Robert Beverley, paid for the others. Therefore, when Spotswood sued the Germans his actions were generally limited to those for whom he had paid the transportation costs.
However, he did sue several others, and that came about because he had bought out some of his partners, who had agreements with the Germans. He picked up, by this route, the contracts for Germans such as Amberger, Ballenger, Broyles, Moyer, Paulitz, Snyder, and Yager. We can be fairly sure that this is the background of the lawsuit against Moyer, for example, because the son of Robert Beverly came to court to testify for Spotswood in the suit against Moyer.
There were nineteen lawsuits, all brought by Spotswood. The Germans did not sue Spotswood as some historians have said. Spotswood initiated the actions which were spread over time.
At no time, did the argument in the suits concern the length of time the Germans were to serve. Nor did the suits require the Germans to work an extra year. The suits were brought for monetary damages, and the awards, if there were any, were in money, not in service.
The basis of the lawsuits, that is, the reasons that Spotswood thought he was entitled to money, is murky. There seems to be no pattern to the amounts that Spotswood sought and the amounts that the juries awarded him. The very first suit, against Jacob Crigler, ended with the defendant agreeing to pay court costs. This is rather remarkable when one considers that the amount sought was thirty-four pounds. How Spotswood could have thought he was entitled to such a princely sum of money, and then back down with nothing, is hard to fathom. In all, the suits against Crigler, Bellenger, Holt, Utz, Clore, and Fleshman were dismissed.
Many of the awards in the cases that went to the juries were sharply reduced from what Spotswood had sought. Conrad Amberger was sued for thirty-two pounds and the jury awarded Spotswood two pounds, thirteen shillings, one and a half pence. This was in the county named for the plaintiff, with judges appointed by the plaintiff, and with jury members who were friends of the plaintiff (well, some of them were). Surely the court room was packed against the defendants.
(11 Apr 03)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.