[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. We have now to note a further difference. In New England, as we have seen, the township was the unit of representation in the colonial legislature; but in Virginia the parish was not the unit of representation. The county was that unit. In the colonial legislature of Virginia the representatives sat not for parishes, but for counties. The difference is very significant. As the political life of New England was in a manner built up out of the political life of the towns, so the political life of Virginia was built up out of the political life of the counties. This was partly because the vast plantations were not grouped about a compact village nucleus like the small farms at the North, and partly because there was not in Virginia that Puritan theory of the church according to which each congregation is a self-governing democracy. The conditions which made the New England town-meeting were absent. The only alternative was some kind of representative government, and for this the county was a small enough area. The county in Virginia was much smaller than in Massachusetts or Connecticut. In a few instances the county consisted of only a single parish; in some cases it was divided into two parishes, but oftener into three or more. [Sidenote: The county court was virtually a close corporation.] In Virginia, as in England and in New England, the county was an area for the administration of justice. There were usually in each county eight justices of the peace, and their court was the counterpart of the Quarter Sessions in England. They were appointed by the governor, but it was customary for them to nominate candidates for the governor to appoint, so that practically the court filled its own vacancies and was a close corporation, like the parish vestry. Such an arrangement tended to keep the general supervision and control of things in the hands of a few families.