Before the year was out, the Board of Trade sought more information on this problem and directed a series of searching questions in October, 1696, to Randolph who had then returned to England. Both the questions and the answers are recorded in the _Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies_, 1696-1697 (pages 172, 188-89). Out of the ten questions asked, the following seem most significant in revealing Randolph's evaluation of the Virginia land system. What proportion of land in Virginia already taken up is now cultivated as near as you can judge? There is in Virginia, at a moderate computation, about 500,000 acres granted by patents, of which not above 40,000 acres are cultivated and improved; besides many thousand acres of waste land high up in the country. Why have not the prosecutions, neglected in Colonel Nicholson's time, been continued since? Colonel Nicholson was the first Governor of Virginia who directed prosecutions for arrears of quit-rents, beginning with Colonel Laurence Smith. The case was ready for trial but the Governor came to England, and the case was afterwards compounded for a small matter. Have any parcels of land been seized for the King's use, for want of planting or failure to pay quit-rents? Small parcels of land are granted away every court for not being planted or seated according to law, but no land has at any time been seized to the King's use for not paying of quit-rents. Are negro servants included in the persons who, if imported, make "rights" to grant of land. [?] Negro servants give a right to land to those who import them, who thereupon take up land, contrary to the true intention of seating the country; but the practice being general, to the advantage of certain persons, no notice is taken of it. Have you ever known of false certificates of rights, and how have the parties guilty thereof been punished? I have heard of many false certificates of rights; the practice is common but little regarded, being of no prejudice to any private person. If your methods be followed, in what county should a beginning be made? ... if my proposals were adopted, I answer that the members of Council have large tracts of land in most of the counties, for which they are in great arrears of quit-rent. It is advisable to make a beginning with some of them and to empower a person uninterested in the county to demand the arrears due to the King. These will amount to a considerable sum and will increase the King's revenue in Virginia yearly. If the patentees refuse to pay the arrears, some hundred thousand acres of land will revert to the crown, to be more carefully disposed of in future.