Preparations were made to organize Virginia for defense; laws were enacted to raise revenue and to elect delegates to the next annual convention. Patrick Henry, colonel of the First Regiment, was made commander of the Virginia forces; and delegates to the Continental Congress were elected.
The Baptists asked that their ministers be allowed to address troops of their own denomination. Their petition was granted, “for the ease of such scrupulous consciences.”
The convention vested the executive power of the colony in a Committee of Safety with Edmund Pendleton as president, whose duties (inter alia) were to commission military officers, direct military movements and issue treasury warrants. Its first aggressive act was to resist the fugitive Governor; who shortly after his flight began bombarding the shores of the Chesapeake.
In September one of his ships was blown ashore in a storm and burned by the incensed inhabitants of Hampton. Several weeks later he led an assault against the [pg 143] town; but was driven off by the villagers, reinforced by the Culpepper minute men.
A body of marines, landing at Norfolk, seized the equipment of a newspaper office and carried it aboard the Fowey. It was on this press Lord Dunmore printed his proclamation of November 7th, declaring all colonists traitors who did not rally to his standard and offering freedom to “all indentured servants, negroes or others, apprenticed to rebels.”
On January 1, 1776, he set fire to Norfolk and while it was burning sailed into the bay. From then, until midsummer he sailed along the shores of the Chesapeake, devastating small villages and plantations. On July 9th, he landed upon and fortified Guinn’s Island. Attacked by General Andrew Lewis, he abandoned his fort, fled to New York, and shortly afterwards sailed for England.
The Fourth Virginia Convention met at Richmond on December 1, 1775; but after organizing, no longer in fear of Lord Dunmore, adjourned to meet at Williamsburg.
The session was consumed in preparation for war. A committee of five was appointed in each county to try those charged as enemies of the colonist cause; a court of admiralty was established; laws were enacted regulating commerce and provision made for increasing the militia, which as enrolled was merged into the Continental Army.
The chief theme of discussion, not only of the convention but of all Virginians, was how formally to shift the government from a royal colony to an independent government and retain status as belligerents. It was finally agreed that the colonies in convention should declare their independence and organize as independent commonwealths.
[pg 144] The Fifth and last convention met at Williamsburg on May 6, 1776, with Edmund Pendleton again as president.