By the middle of the eighteenth century, colonial Virginians had developed a legal system that reflected both the authority of the British Crown and the development of local self-government. The courts enforced English common law, statutory law, and the criminal code, with modifications for local conditions. Punishments for crimes were swift and often physical. Although all Virginians accused of a crime had the opportunity to speak in court, only a small number of colonists ruled on their neighbors' innocence or guilt. Perhaps most foreign to Americans living in the late twentieth century, in the eighteenth century the courts were associated with more than justice. As central public meeting places for the exchange of information and goods,
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