In the struggle that preceded the Revolution more than two-thirds of the Virginia clergy of the established church and a portion of the lay members were loyalists. Of those clergymen who adhered to the patriotic side several were men of note, such as Jarratt, Madison, (afterwards the first bishop of Virginia,) Bracken, Muhlenburg, of the Valley of the Shenandoah, who accepted a colonel's commission, raised a regiment, and served throughout the war; and Thruston, who also became a colonel.
Congress having ordered the army to be augmented to eighty-eight battalions, to serve during the continuance of the war, a quota of fifteen battalions was assigned to Virginia; and to complete them the assembly took measures to raise seven battalions in addition to those already embodied. Attention was bestowed upon the building up of a naval force, and men were transferred from the army to the marine service. Infantry and cavalry, speedily raised and well officered, were sent to join General Washington, and measures were adopted for calling forth the resources of Virginia, and to strengthen her for the exigencies of war. Courts of admiralty were established; entails abolished, the bill for this purpose being framed by Mr. Jefferson; treason was defined, and penalties denounced against such as should maintain and defend the authority of the king or parliament, or should excite sedition in the State; importation from Great Britain was prohibited; loyalist British factors were ordered to depart from the commonwealth under a statute of twenty-seventh year of Edward the Third.
Governor Henry, owing to the state of his health, retired, with the concurrence of the assembly, to the country. An effort made at this time by David Rogers, a member of the senate, and some other malecontents in West Augusta, to erect themselves into a separate state, proved abortive. Robert C. Nicholas, resigning the office of treasurer, received the thanks of the legislature for his faithful discharge of the duties of his office. He was succeeded by George Webb. The estate of Lord Dunmore was disposed of, and the proceeds appropriated to the payment of his debts.[676:A] Jefferson, Pendleton, Wythe, Mason, and Thomas Ludwell Lee were appointed a committee to revise the laws. By the resignation of Mr. Mason, and the indisposition of Mr. Lee, the duty eventually devolved upon the other three.
Congress, with a view of gaining the alliance of France, appointed three commissioners to that court: Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Thomas Jefferson. Mr. Jefferson declined the appointment, and it was then given to Dr. Arthur Lee.
Toward the close of this session of the Virginia Assembly, when Washington was retreating through the Jerseys, and when the cause of independence seemed almost desperate, several of the members, it is said, meditated, in imitation of the Roman Republic, the appointment of a dictator. The tradition is, that such was the animosity engendered by this scheme, that they who espoused, and they who opposed it, walked on opposite sides of the street. Who they were that favored it, or where it was concocted, or how developed, does not appear. It is reported, indeed, that Patrick Henry was the person held in view as the dictator; but that he suggested the plan, or favored it, or consented to it, or was in any way privy to it, there is no evidence to prove, nor has it even been alleged. The tradition (resting on no testimony) relates, that Archibald Cary, a man of violent temper, and a life-long opponent of Henry, sent a message to the governor, (by his brother-in-law, Colonel Syme,) that on the day in which he should accept the dictatorship he should fall by his dagger; and the Colonel has been compared to Brutus—as if the example was worthy of imitation, or as if a dictator appointed by a Virginia assembly can be justly compared to Julius Cæsar at the head of his legions, usurping the government by his sword.
South Carolina invested her governor, John Rutledge, a native of Ireland, with dictatorial powers during the revolutionary war. The Virginia assembly at this session invested Governor Henry with several extraordinary powers, and recommended to congress "to invest the commander-in-chief of the American forces with more ample and extensive powers for conducting the operations of the war." Washington urged the States to clothe their executives with extraordinary powers, and he himself was invested by congress with such. The safety of the people, the supreme law, may demand, in a crisis of extreme danger, the appointment of an officer charged with extraordinary powers, (but who, nevertheless, would be as much the creature of law as any ordinary judge or deputy-sheriff,) "to take care that the Republic shall receive no detriment."
A year or two before the rupture with the mother country, the Presbytery of Hanover established a seminary in Augusta, beyond the Blue Ridge. The Rev. Samuel Stanhope Smith, who had been a teacher of languages in the College of New Jersey, was at this time a missionary in Virginia, and the school was founded upon his recommendation. The superintendent was John Brown, and the tutor William Graham. From this seminary Washington College, at Lexington, arose. By the advice of Rev. S. S. Smith it was determined to found another seminary east of the Blue Ridge, and the funds were raised by subscription; and although it was a period of apprehension and alarm, yet the enterprise was urged with energy and success.[677:A] This work was accomplished in 1775, amid the throes of revolution, and Prince Edward Academy, the original foundation of Hampden Sidney College, was opened in January, 1776.[678:A]
Increased educational means were much needed, all communication with Great Britain being cut off; and educated youth would be wanting to fill the places of such as would soon fall victims of the war. The College of William and Mary was indeed old and tolerably well endowed; but it was near the scene of war and surrounded by noisy camps. In a short time more than a hundred students flocked to the Prince Edward Academy, and their number exceeded the means of accommodation. During the year a military company of the students was organized, Mr. John Blair Smith, Jr., a tutor, being captain. The uniform was a purple hunting-shirt. This company, upon a requisition of the governor for militia from Prince Edward during the following year, marched to Williamsburg, where, however, their services were not required. Some of them became officers in the army, and others enlisted as common soldiers.
In 1775 the convention of Virginia had directed the committee of safety to procure armed vessels, for the better defence of the colony; and the control and management were entrusted to them. The few small vessels and barges in their service were useful in restraining the tories, in protecting property, and in recapturing fugitive slaves. In May, 1776, a board of naval commissioners was appointed, consisting of Thomas Whiting, John Hutchins, Champion Travis, Thomas Newton, Jr., and George Webb. They met for the first time on the eighth of July following, at Williamsburg. About seventy vessels appear to have been in service at some time or other during the war of Revolution—including thirty ships, brigs, and brigantines, and thirty-eight smaller vessels.[678:B] Many of the vessels were built at the Chickahominy navy-yard, South Quay, Hampton, and near Norfolk. Early in April, 1776, George Mason, of the committee of safety, had charge of the building of two galleys, and of "the American Congress," this last to carry fourteen guns, four and six-pounders, and her complement of marines and seamen being ninety-six men. The look-outs were a sort of winged sentries, and were exposed to hard service. But a small part of the vessels of the Virginia navy were in actual service at any one time; and there was a deplorable want of men, some having not more than one-twentieth of their full number. The vessels usually served separately, but early in the contest Commodore Boucher commanded fifteen sail in the Potomac; and at another time Captain Richard Taylor was in command of a squadron in Hampton Roads. The Virginia-built vessels, although plain and simple in their construction, were very fast sailers. This, together with their lighter draught and familiarity with the waters, often enabled them to escape from the enemy. Of all the vessels of the Virginia navy not one remains.
James Maxwell, Esq., was superintendent of the navy-yard on the Chickahominy, and he was assisted by Captain Christopher Calvert. The former officer commanded the ship Cormorant in 1782. He was father of the late William Maxwell, Esq., Secretary of the Virginia Historical Society. The three commodores commissioned during the struggle were J. Boucher, Walter Brooke, and James Barron. Richard Barron, brother of James, was a captain during the whole war. The Barrons appear to have had a natural proclivity for the water. Lieutenant William Barron, of the continental navy, lost his life by the bursting of a gun on board of the frigate Boston, in bringing to a vessel off the coast of France, in 1778. John Adams, and his son John Quincy, then a boy, were on board of this ship on this occasion. Mr. Adams held the lieutenant in his arms while his leg was amputated. This William Barron had been a lieutenant in the Virginia naval service. Among the captains were Richard Barron, Eleazer Callender, John Calvert, John Cowper, Thomas Lilly, John Pasture, John Harris, James Markham, Richard Taylor, Edward Travis, Cely Saunders, Isaac Younghusband, and John Catesby Cocke. Of the lieutenants may be named Dale, Cunningham, Chamberlayne, Lewis, Pickett, Watkins, and Jennings. Among the surgeons are found the names of Kemp, Lyon, McClurg, Brockenbrough, Christie, Riddle, Reynolds, Sharpless, Swope, and Pell. Among the seamen were many faithful blacks, who served through the whole war. Most of the Virginia armed vessels were eventually captured at sea or destroyed in the rivers. The vessels commanded by the Barrons were the Liberty and the Patriot. The former was engaged in twenty actions, and was probably the only one that escaped the enemy.
