Members of the legislature who profited by such practices were doubtless willing to stretch a point in favor of the receiver of the customs. In 1679, before he had become receiver, Colonel Byrd was able to obtain from the assembly, on condition of maintaining fifty armed men to repel Indian attacks on the frontier, a grant of ten thousand acres at the Falls extending on both sides of the James River. The grant was disallowed in England, but other grants of great value were obtained with little difficulty. Patents were easily obtained, but they did not become effective until the land was "settled" by clearing and cultivating a minimum tract. For a poor man this was the chief obstacle to acquiring a great estate; but a rich man was often able to avoid it altogether. In 1688, Byrd secured a patent for 3313 acres. He failed to "settle" it and the title lapsed. But the land could not be granted again until the lapse of title was officially declared in the office of the escheator. Colonel Byrd was fortunately escheator as well as receiver, and the lapse of his own title was not declared until 1701, when the same tract was immediately repatented to Nathaniel Harrison, who straightway transferred it to his neighbor and very good friend, the original patentee. In like manner the colonel preempted 5644 acres of land, which he held without improvement for ten years when it was transferred to his son. The aristocracy, of which Colonel Byrd was a shining light, nevertheless held by a somewhat precarious tenure. The crude and primitive conditions of the wilderness, restricting both the occupations and the diversions of life within narrow limits, inevitably ran the thoughts of men in much the same mould. The routine of work and pleasure was much the same on the great plantation as on the small: clearing and planting, spinning and weaving, dancing and horse-racing, neighborly hospitality which was generous and sincere because the opportunity to exercise it was rare, attendance at church or at the county court, at elections, at the annual muster--it was a range of activities too limited to permit of any deep-seated sense of difference between man and man.