When he arrived in New York on the 23rd July, 1756, he found affairs in great confusion. After the care with which Braddock's campaign had been planned for him and the disastrous outcome, the home authorities were now slow to adopt measures to cope with the crisis. Not only Fort DuQuesne but Forts Oswego and Ontario were held by the French, aggressive and confident from their repeated successes. After spending a year in surveying the situation, Loudoun headed an expedition against Louisburg, going as far as Halifax and then, though a caution made to appear the more excessive by inevitable comparison with the dash and reckless courage of Pepperell's earlier and sensationally successful expedition, returned to New York without striking a blow. He had incurred great unpopularity earlier in New York and now in Halifax although in the former, at least, his measures of quartering troops and interference with commerce fairly could be defended on the ground of military necessity. Of more unfortunate importance, the ineptitude and dilatory inefficiency of his Louisburg campaign had drained its defenders from the Hudson Valley, thus permitting a successful and disastrous invasion of the Province of New York by the French and their Indians and Loudoun was peremptorily recalled to England (1757), General Jeffrey Amherst being sent over to take his place. Loudoun's indecision inspired Benjamin Franklin's famous epigram which all down the years, to the few who remember Loudoun, remains inseparably associated with his name: that, "he was like King George upon the signposts, always on horseback but never advancing." There was, however, at least one voice publicly raised on his behalf; an effort was made in England to defend his conduct in America through an anonymous pamphlet published in London the following year entitled "The Conduct of a Noble Commander in America Impartially Reviewed with the genuine Causes of the Discontents at New York and Hallifax," one of the few surviving copies of which is now lodged in the Library of Congress. And it was for this British general with but a year of American experience (and that far from glorious) who never, so far as it is known, set foot on Virginia's soil that the fairest of Piedmont's counties was named during those brief months when his ascendant star glowed with an all too temporary brilliance and hope and expectation ran high. Had the county been organized when first proposed or had its formation been further postponed, it is a fair presumption that another name would have been chosen.
Lord Loudoun's American record seemingly did not end his influence in London. In 1762, when war broke out between England and Spain, he was appointed second in command, under Lord Tyrawley, of the British troops sent to Portugal. As he never married, his title upon his death at Loudoun Castle on the 27th April, 1782, passed to his cousin, James Mure Campbell, a grandson of the second Earl.
Of the first officials of Loudoun County, the following men by commission of the Virginia Council, dated the 24th May, 1757, became its first court or governing body: Anthony Russell, Fielding Turner, James Hamilton, Aeneas Campbell, Nicholas Minor, William West, of the Quorum, Richard Coleman, Josias Clapham, George West, Charles Tyler, John Moss, Francis Peyton and John Mucklehany. These men may be taken as outstanding residents.
We can learn from the early records something concerning the actual procedure followed in organizing the new county. The first entry in the volume of Court Orders is a record on the 12th day of July, 1757, that a Commission of the Peace and Dedimus of the county directed to the last mentioned "Gentlemen, justices of the said County was produced and openly Read, and pursuant to the Dedimus" that they took the oaths prescribed by law.
The first county clerk was Charles Binns who served thirty-nine years in that capacity, from 1757 to 1796; to be succeeded by his son Charles Binns, Jr., who, in his turn, served forty-one years or from 1796 to 1837, a record indicating that Loudoun had been fortunate in the selection for this office. It is traditional in the county that the first clerk's office was at Rokeby, the present country seat of Mr. and Mrs. B. Franklin Nalle.
The first sheriff was Aeneas Campbell who came to the then Fairfax County from Saint Mary's County, Maryland, just in time to become a lieutenant in that Fairfax company in the French War captained by Nicholas Minor and whose home was at Raspberry Plain as already has been shown.[77] It is also locally related that the first jail was a small brick building about twelve feet square, in his yard there. A ducking-spring was also a part of the new sheriff's equipment at his home and was used to temper the enthusiasm of females too greatly addicted to mischievous talking. A woman duly convicted of idle gossip and slandering her neighbours, was generally fined in tobacco; if the fine were not paid by her husband or the dame herself, she was taken to the ducking-spring, where a long pole had a chair with arms attached to its end. The talkative lady was then tied in the chair, the pole lowered and she was immersed in the pond a sufficient number of times to cause her ruefully to remember her experience and, let us hope, amend her conduct. Alas! Alas! Tempora mutantur.
Campbell's bond as sheriff occupies the place of honor in the first Deed Book of the county on page one. He and his two sureties, Anthony Russell and James Hamilton, bind themselves "unto our Sovereign Lord King George the second in the sum of one thousand pounds Current Money to be paid to our said Lord the King his Heirs and Successors." Tobacco as money was all well enough in Virginia but apparently was not appreciated by Royalty across the sea.
Both county clerk and sheriff qualified at this first session of the Court.
Aeneas Campbell was one of the leading spirits in the new county. Not only was he its first sheriff but he built its first courthouse, as later noted, and was an original trustee of Leesburg when that town was "erected." In those days the outstanding men in a community were chosen for public office and the frequency of his name on the records unquestionably confirms his influential prominence. His later career was interesting. After he sold Raspberry Plain to Thomson Mason in 1760, we find him, in 1776, back in Maryland and busily engaged in the work of the Revolution. He became captain of the First Maryland Battalion of the Flying Camp in July of that year and on the 18th of the month in Frederick County, is credited with presenting to that command thirty-two men, including his son Aeneas Campbell, Jr., (who held the rank of cadet) all of whom were then reviewed and passed (accepted?) by Major John Fulford.[78] His descendants, including the Giddings family of Leesburg, proudly retain the tradition that Campbell raised and accoutred this force entirely at his own expense, setting an example of patriotism which Loudoun should remember.
The county lieutenant, first officer in rank but, in the present instance, the last to be chosen, was not commissioned until December, 1757, when Francis Lightfoot Lee, son of our old friend Thomas Lee, was selected and settled himself on lands which he had inherited from his father and which were within the boundaries of the new county. His residence in Loudoun, however, did not prove to be permanent, for upon his marriage in 1769, to Miss Rebecca Tayloe of Mount Airy, he removed to Menokin on the Rappahannock where he continued to reside until his death, without issue, in the winter of 1797; but as a result of his frontier experience he was always thereafter called "Loudoun" by his brothers.[79] In addition to his position as county lieutenant he and James Hamilton served as the first Burgesses from Loudoun and continuously so acted for a number of years.