Lord Loudoun's American record seemingly did not end his influence in London. In 1762, when war broke out between England and Spain, he was appointed second in command, under Lord Tyrawley, of the British troops sent to Portugal. As he never married, his title upon his death at Loudoun Castle on the 27th April, 1782, passed to his cousin, James Mure Campbell, a grandson of the second Earl. Of the first officials of Loudoun County, the following men by commission of the Virginia Council, dated the 24th May, 1757, became its first court or governing body: Anthony Russell, Fielding Turner, James Hamilton, Aeneas Campbell, Nicholas Minor, William West, of the Quorum, Richard Coleman, Josias Clapham, George West, Charles Tyler, John Moss, Francis Peyton and John Mucklehany. These men may be taken as outstanding residents. We can learn from the early records something concerning the actual procedure followed in organizing the new county. The first entry in the volume of Court Orders is a record on the 12th day of July, 1757, that a Commission of the Peace and Dedimus of the county directed to the last mentioned "Gentlemen, justices of the said County was produced and openly Read, and pursuant to the Dedimus" that they took the oaths prescribed by law. The first county clerk was Charles Binns who served thirty-nine years in that capacity, from 1757 to 1796; to be succeeded by his son Charles Binns, Jr., who, in his turn, served forty-one years or from 1796 to 1837, a record indicating that Loudoun had been fortunate in the selection for this office. It is traditional in the county that the first clerk's office was at Rokeby, the present country seat of Mr. and Mrs. B. Franklin Nalle. The first sheriff was Aeneas Campbell who came to the then Fairfax County from Saint Mary's County, Maryland, just in time to become a lieutenant in that Fairfax company in the French War captained by Nicholas Minor and whose home was at Raspberry Plain as already has been shown.[77] It is also locally related that the first jail was a small brick building about twelve feet square, in his yard there. A ducking-spring was also a part of the new sheriff's equipment at his home and was used to temper the enthusiasm of females too greatly addicted to mischievous talking. A woman duly convicted of idle gossip and slandering her neighbours, was generally fined in tobacco; if the fine were not paid by her husband or the dame herself, she was taken to the ducking-spring, where a long pole had a chair with arms attached to its end. The talkative lady was then tied in the chair, the pole lowered and she was immersed in the pond a sufficient number of times to cause her ruefully to remember her experience and, let us hope, amend her conduct. Alas! Alas! _Tempora mutantur_. [77] See chapter VII ante.