1An excellent summary of the ways in which the Virginia burgesses and their counterparts in North and South Carolina and Georgia quietly gained the upper hand by mid-century, see Jack P. Greene,Quest for Power(University of North Carolina Press, 1963).
2For differing views of the debt situation see Lawrence H. Gipson,The Coming of the Revolution(Harper and Row: New York, 1954), 40-54, and Emory G. Evans, Planter Indebtedness and the Coming of the Revolution in Virginia,"William and Mary Quarterly,3rd. series, XIX (1962), 511-33. Evans holds an anti-debt position.
3Journal of House of Burgesses, 5 August 1736.
4See D. Alan Williams, "The Virginia Gentry and the Democratic Myth",Main Problems in American History, 3rd. ed. (Dorsey Press, Homewood, Illinois, 1971), 22-36.
5Journal of House of Burgesses, 5 August 1736.
6For a short well-written discussion of the election process see Charles S. Sydnor,Gentlemen Freeholders: Political Practices in Washington's Virginia(University of North Carolina, 1952, reprinted in paperback asRevolutionaries in the Making: Political Practices in Washington's Virginia.
7Journal of House of Burgesses, 1752-1758, 143, 154-155.
8: Clinton Rossiter,Six Characters in Search of a Republic(Harcourt, Brace: New York, 1964), chap. 5, "Richard Bland, the Whig in America", 184).
9Robert D. Meade,Patriot in the Making(Patrick Henry) (Lippincott: Philadelphia, 1957), 132.
10Ian R. Christie,Crisis of Empire, Great Britain and the American Colonies, 1754-1783(Norton: New York, 1966), 54. The King's comment on Grenville is cited on p. 39.
11There are those who suggest the troops were sent to America on a pretext. The ministry, knowing it could not reduce the army to peacetime size in face of French threats, also knew there was strong English resentment against "a standing army" in England. The colonial condition offered an excuse for retaining the men in arms See Bernhard Knollenberg,Origin of the American Revolution, 1759-1766(New York, 1960), chapters 5-9).
12For a favorable and convincing view of Virginia's motives in passing the paper money bills, see Joseph Ernst, "Genesis of the Currency Act of 1764, Virginia Paper Money and the Protection of British Investments",William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., XXII, 3-32, and "The Robinson Scandal Redivius",Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, LXXVII, 146-173. Ernst is critical of Robinson's political use of the funds. For a more charitable view of Robinson's actions, see the outstanding biography by David Mays,Edmund Pendleton1721-1803 (Harvard Press, 1952), 2 vols. Pendleton was the executor of the Robinson estate.
13Both quotes cited in Edmund and Helen Morgan,The Stamp Act Crisispaperback edition (Collier Books: New York, 1962), 76. This is the standard work on the Stamp Act.
14Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, XII, 10, 13. Comprising the committee were Councilors John Blair, William Nelson, Thomas Nelson, Sr., Robert Carter, and Burgesses Peyton Randolph, George Wyth, Robert Carter Nicholas, and Dudley Digges.
15William Van Schreeven and Robert Scribner,Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence, Vol. I. A. Documentary Record(University Press of Virginia: Charlottesville, 1973), 9-14. This volume contains the main revolutionary statements of the assembly, conventions, and certain county and quasi-legal local gatherings, 1763-1774.
16Ibid., 15-18; resolves 6 and 7 are cited in Meade,Henry, I, 171.
17A guinea equalled 21 shillings or £525. Later Jefferson said 100 guineas. Jefferson's comments are found in Stan. V. Henkels, "Jefferson's Recollections of Patrick Henry,"Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, XXXIV, 385-418.
18The record is sparse because no recorded votes were kept; so the only known votes in favor of the Resolves were: Henry of Louisa, Johnston of Fairfax, John Fleming of Cumberland, Henry Blagrave and William Taylor of Lunenburg, Robert Munford and Edmund Taylor of Mecklenburg, and Paul Carrington and Thomas Reade of Charlotte. As the twists of fate would have it, all these counties except Fairfax were named for the Hanoverians. It is almost certain the Lee brothers voted "yes".
19Hamilton J. Eckenrode,Revolution in Virginia(New York, 1916), 22.
20The resolution of the Westmoreland and Northumberland courts, and Leadstown Association, and the Norfolk Sons of Liberty are found in Van Schreeven and Scribner,Revolutionary Virginia, I, 19-26, 25-48.
21Cited in Morgans,Stamp Act, 335. The discussion which follows accepts as convincing the Morgan's contention, pgs. 15-154, that the colonists made no distinction between internal and external taxes in theory, only between taxes in general and navigation acts for regulatory purposes.
22ibid., 327-352.
23Robert A. Rutland, ed.,Papers of George Mason, 3 vols. (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1970), I, 65-73.
24For the full text of Bland'sInquiry, see Van Schreeven and Scribner,Revolutionary America, I, 27-44.
25J. Steven Watson, THE REIGN OF GEORGE III (Oxford, 1960), 4.
26Ibid. (From 1710 to 1768 the governor for Virginia did not reside in the colony, choosing instead to accept a fixed salary and agreeing to send in his stead a lieutenant-governor who actually exercised all the power. This system ended with Amherst and his lieutenant-governor, Francis Fauquier, who died in March 1768.)
27For the resolution see, Van Schreeven and Scribner,Revolutionary Virginia, I, 89-92. Also note that this committee consists of men who ware on opposite sides of the fence in the Stamp Act debate in 1765.
28Copies of the extant county and town resolves with the names of many of the signers can be found in Van Schreeven and Scribner,Revolutionary Virginia, I, 168. There are known, but unrecorded, resolves from at least nine more of the 65 Virginia jurisdictions.
29Both are published in Van Schreeven and Scribner,Revolutionary Virginia, I, 169-203 and 240-256.
30Dumas Malone,Jefferson the Virginian(Little, Brown: Boston, 1948), 182. His excellent discussion of theSummary Viewis on pages 181-190.
31As with Henry's other great speeches no correct text remains. There seems little doubt that the exact words in the speech were lost and that as time went on, they were improved. But the debate over the exact text should not obscure the basic fact that Henry's oratory stirred men's hearts with phrases in a manner no other Virginian, perhaps no other American, has ever done.
32"Jefferson's Recollections," 400-401.
33Clinton, Rossiter,Seedtime of the Republic(Harcourt, Brace: New York, 1953), 401.
34Rutland,Mason, I, 287-289.
35Malone,Jefferson the Virginian, 224.
36Rutland,Mason, I, 295-310.
37Bernard Bailyn,Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, Harvard University Press, 1962, chapter 4.
38Robert M. Calhoon.The Loyalists in Revolutionary America, 1760-1781, (Harcourt, Brace: New York, 1973), 458; Isaac Harrell,Loyalism in Virginia(Duke University, 1926), 62-65.
39Harrell,Loyalism in Virginia, 66-96.
40For a good description of the economic impact of the war on one dedicated Virginian, read Emory Evans'Thomas Nelson of Yorktown: Virginia Revolutionary(University Press, Charlottesville, 1975), 65-123.
41The best general survey of the war is by John Alden,A History of the American Revolution(Knopf: New York, 1969). The best detailed account is by Christopher Ward,The War of the Revolution, 2 volumes. (MacMillan: New York, 1952). Both have been utilized in this section.
42Alden,American Revolution, 183-184.
43For a dramatic, but not inaccurate, account of the expedition and Clark, read John Bakeless,Background to Glory: The Story of George Rogers Clark(Lippincott: Philadelphia, 1957.)
44Gardner W. Allen,A Naval of the American Revolution, 2 volumes (Boston, 1913), I, 40-41.
45For a fuller discussion of black Virginians in the Revolution, see Luther P. Jackson,Virginia Negro Soldiers and Sailors in the Revolutionary War(Norfolk, 1944), and Benjamin Quarles,The Negro in the American Revolution(University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 1961).
46Ward, American Revolution, II, 792.
47The chronology of selected events in Virginia 1763-1783 was taken from William W. Abbot's publication entitled, A VIRGINIA CHRONOLOGY 1585-1783, "To pass away the time", Williamsburg, Virginia, 1957. Permission for use of this material has been granted by the publisher.