On July 17, 1775, delegates to the Virginia Convention reassembled in Richmond. Those who were reluctant in March now knew that forceful measures must be taken to defend Virginia through creating an interim government. Dunmore could not manage the colony from shipboard, and the royal council was defunct without him. From Philadelphia came word of the formation of the Continental Army with Washington as its commander; from Boston the news was of the staggering casualties inflicted on the British redcoats by the New Englanders before they abandoned Breed's Hill in the battle known as Bunker Hill; from New York rumors spread of the impending invasion by the British navy; and for good news there were the victories of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold at Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point.
The July Convention elected an 11-man Committee of Safety to govern the colony. This committee, which had greater powers than any other executive body in the history of Virginia, could set its own meeting times, appoint all military officers, distribute arms and munitions, call up the militia and independent minute-men companies, direct military strategy, commit men to the defense of other colonies and to assure the colony of its general safety. Unlike many colonies whose interim governments fell into the hands of men previously excluded from high office, the Virginia Committee of Safety comprised men of the first rank, respected leaders from throughout the colony: Pendleton, Mason, Bland, John Page, Thomas Ludwell Lee, Paul Carrington, Dudley Digges, William Cabell, Carter Braxton, James Mercer, and James Tabb. Pendleton was the chairman. This committee met in almost continuous session during the crises of 1775.
The convention established a Virginia army of three regiments commanded by Thomas Nelson, Jr., William Woodford, and Patrick Henry, with Henry designated as commander. The choice of the great orator for a field command post turned out to be a mistake which even his most loyal supporters subsequently admitted. The error was later rectified, but not without creating considerable hard feelings.
Throughout the late summer and early fall Dunmore, in command of several ships and British regulars brought up from St. Augustine, blockaded the Chesapeake, raided several plantations, and built bases at Gosport, at the shipyard of Andrew Sprowle used by the Royal Navy near Portsmouth, and in Norfolk. There he was joined by a number of Loyalists, mostly Scots, and 300 former slaves whom Dunmore made into a military company he dubbed "his Loyal Ethiopians". On October 25-27, 1775, Dunmore sent five ships to burn Hampton. Reinforcements were sent from Williamsburg. Except for a severe salt shortage resulting from the blockade and the irritation of seeing former slaves in British uniform with the mocking motto "Liberty for Slaves" replacing the colonial slogan "Liberty or Death", most Virginians saw Dunmore as a nuisance rather than a serious threat.
Then on November 7,1775, Dunmore, exercising one last gasp of royal power, declared Virginia to be in rebellion, imposed martial law, and announced that all slaves belonging to rebels were emancipated. This action cost Dunmore his creditability and destroyed his reputation among the colonists. Until this time the Virginians had been very respectful of both Lord and Lady Dunmore, whom they assumed were following orders which could not be ignored. Now with this personal act Dunmore had shown himself to favor a determined policy against the colonists.
Deciding to wait no longer, the Committee of Safety which had been criticized for its inaction, dispatched Woodford with an army independent of Henry's command to drive Dunmore from Gosport. Dunmore removed himself to Norfolk. In December 1775 Woodford's men, supported by some North Carolinians, faced Dunmore's army of redcoats, loyalists, and former slaves at Great Bridge, the long land causeway and bridge through the swampland and over the Elizabeth River near Norfolk. There on December 9 Woodford's men repulsed a frontal attack by Dunmore's regulars and drove them from Great Bridge. After losing the Battle of Great Bridge, Dunmore knew he could not defend Norfolk. He abandoned the town to Woodford on December 14, but returned with his ships on January 1, 1776 to shell and burn the port. Woodford's men then completed the destruction of the one center of Torism in the colony by burning the city to the ground.
Dunmore resumed harassing colonial trade for several more months. However, his loyalist supporters dwindled away and he received no reenforcements of British regulars. Most of his black troops had been abandoned to the colonists after Great Bridge. Those who remained with him were later sent into slavery in the West Indies. Finally, on July 8-9, 1776, Colonel Andrew Lewis' land-based artillery badly damaged Dunmore's fleet at the Battle of Gwynn's Island, in Gloucester County, now Mathews County. With this Dunmore and his ships left Virginia, the Governor going to New York where he took an army command under General Howe. Not until 1779 did a British fleet return in force to the Chesapeake.
On May 6, 1776, the Virginia Convention had reconvened, this time in Williamsburg, for there was no need to fear Dunmore. Nor was there any doubt about the overwhelming Virginian sentiment for independence. The winter's war, the king's stubbornness, Parliament's Prohibitory Act, Dunmore's martial law, and Thomas Paine's stirring rhetoric in his incomparable Common Sense had all swung public opinion toward independence. Paine's Common Sense touched Virginians through the printed word in much the same manner as Henry's fiery oratory reached their hearts.
Immediately upon sitting, the Convention received three resolutions for independence. Leading the resolutionists was Edmund Pendleton, President of the Convention, formerly among the more cautious of patriots. For once Henry wavered slightly and let others take the lead.
On May 15 the convention instructed Richard Henry Lee as a delegate to the Continental Congress to introduce a resolution for independence stating: