May 11, 1766. At the height of the Stamp Act crisis, the dominant group in the House of Burgesses was shaken by a scandal involving the long-time Speaker and Treasurer of the Colony, John Robinson, who died on this day leaving his accounts short by some 100,000 pounds.
June 9, 1766. Governor Fauquier announced by public proclamation the repeal of the Stamp Act (March 18, 1766). Although repeal brought a wave of reaction against the agitation of the past months and a strong upsurge of loyalty to Great Britain, the leaders of Virginia, and of the other colonies, had consciously or not moved to a new position in their view of the proper relationship between the Colony and the Mother Country. The failure of the rulers of Britain to appreciate and assess properly the changed temper of the colonists lost for them the American empire.
November 6, 1766. The General Assembly of 1766-1768 met: November 6-December 16, 1766 and adjourned to March 12-April 11, 1767, and then met in a final session, March 31-April 16, 1768.
January, 1768. The Virginia Gazette began to publish John Dickenson's letters from a "Pennsylvania Farmer." These letters did a great deal to clarify, in the minds of many, the American position with regard to the Parliamentary claim of the right of taxation in the colonies.
March 3, 1768. Governor Fauquier died.
March 31, 1768. News of the passage of the Townshend Acts and of the suspension of the New York legislature was already causing a wave of indignation in Virginia when the General Assembly met in March. Having taken under consideration the circular letter of the Massachusetts legislature opposing the Townshend Acts and various petitions to the same effect, the House of Burgesses prepared petitions to the Crown and to both Houses of Parliament, and on April 14 adopted all three unanimously. The House then sent word to the other colonial Assemblies of its action and congratulated the Massachusetts House "for their attention to American liberty."
August 12, 1768. In a move to strengthen the hand of the Virginia Governor and at the same time to conciliate the Colony, the King made Fauquier's replacement, Norborne Berkeley, Baron de Botetourt, Governor of Virginia in the place of Jeffrey Amherst. Not since the time of Governor Nicholson had the Governor himself come out to Virginia.
October 26, 1768. Lord Botetourt arrived in Williamsburg.
May 8, 1769. The Governor, Lord Botetourt, opened the first and only session of the General Assembly of 1769 (May 8-17) with a conciliatory speech; but, obviously unmoved, the House of Burgesses set about with remarkable unanimity to restate their position with regard to Parliamentary supremacy. The House also denounced the reported plan for transporting colonists accused of treason to England for trial. On May 16, the House adopted resolutions to this effect and then on the next day unanimously approved an address to the Crown.
May 17, 1769. The House resolutions of the 16th caused Lord Botetourt to dissolve the General Assembly. Dissolution blocked the planned adoption of George Mason's proposal for forming an association with the other colonies for the purpose of suspending the importation of British goods. But the Burgesses got around this by meeting in their private capacity at the house of Anthony Hays. This was a momentous step. The meeting made Speaker Peyton Randolph the moderator and appointed a committee to present a plan for association.