☞ The Subscribers to the _Virginia_ Laws, as well as the Public Magistrates, having loudly complain’d of their long Delay, and thrown the Blame of it entirely on the Printer; it is judg’d necessary to assure them, That they have been printed near four Months, and that their Publication has been in no wise retarded through his Neglect, but for Want of the _Table_; the Gentleman appointed to draw it up, not having yet compleated it—— Those subscribers who are in immediate Want of them, on paying a Pistole, may have them Stitch’d for present Use, which they may afterwards have bound when the Table is printed, making it up the Subscription Price. [Illustration: _When he worked on a number of books at the same time, the binder ordinarily moved them in groups through the various binding processes. Thus a group of books, all damp and needing to be pressed, could be put into such a standing press as this, with “press boards” between each one. While this group dried out the next was being glued up, and so on._] Nearly twenty years later a subsequent collection of Virginia laws caused a different kind of trouble for three of Hunter’s successors in Williamsburg. The job of printing and binding 1,000 copies of the great volume was too much for the public printer, William Rind, to handle alone. So he undertook it jointly with the partnership of Alexander Purdie and John Dixon. Their order for leather to cover the books was answered by a shipment from London of “Nasty dirty little skins” that could neither be used nor returned. Eventually the skins rotted on the wharf at Yorktown, while the printers had to ask reimbursement from the House of Burgesses. Although William Parks published a number of books under his own imprint, just as he had done in Annapolis, Hunter, Royle, and their successors seem to have been much less active in this phase of the printing and binding business. Those who were public printers continued to issue the Virginia laws and other public compilations, proclamations, and the like. Also, they annually printed small pocket almanacs, usually only stitched and covered in paper, which sold in considerable numbers each December and January. _OTHER WILLIAMSBURG BINDERS_ The several Williamsburg printers who followed Royle left no daybooks or other records that have yet come to light. What little we know of their bookbinding activities comes from their advertisements in the various _Virginia Gazettes_. (At one time three separate weekly papers were issued in Williamsburg by rival printers, all called the _Virginia Gazette_!) Here are some typical samples: GENTLEMEN may now be supplied, on short notice, at the Printing Office, _Williamsburg_, with BLANK BOOKS of all sizes, ruled or unruled, and bound either in Calf or Vellum. OLD BOOKS also new bound, and any thing in the BOOK BINDING business executed in the cheapest and best manner.