My understanding from seeing statutes that the General Assembly passed
to naturalize foreigners is that no person born owing allegiance to a
foreign potentate could bequeath property or hold some of the important
public offices (such as justice of the peace and sheriff) without first
being made a legal denizen of the colony, that is to say, a subject of
the Crown. Quite a few English (and perhaps smaller numbers of Scottish
and Irish) residents lived for greater or lesser lengths of time in the
Netherlands (recall the Pilgrims and the Custis family that subsequently
moved to Virginia), and some or all of those people might have required
acts of naturalization to entitle them to all the rights that Englishmen
were normally entitled to in Virginia.

Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
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