Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography

[Page 63]
Robinson, John, president of the council, became acting governor on the departure of Sir William Gooch for England, June 20, 1749. His grandfather was John Robinson, of Cleasby, Yorkshire, England, who married Elizabeth Potter, daughter of Christopher Potter of Cleasby. His uncle was Dr. John Robinson, Bishop of Bristol and London, who served as British envoy to Sweden, writing while there a history of Sweden, and was also British plenipotentiary at the treaty of Utrecht. His father was Christopher Robinson, a member of the Virginia council in 1691-93, and secretary of state in 1692-93, who married Judith, daughter of Colonel Christopher Wormeley. John Robinson was born in 1683 in Middlesex county, Virginia, at "Hewick," his father's residence on the Rappahannock river. He occupied many important positions in the colony, was member of the house of burgesses in 1711 and other years, member of the council in 1720, and when Governor Gooch left for England, June 20, 1749, became as president of the council, acting governor. In this capacity he served but a few months only, dying September 3, 1749. He married Katherine, daughter of Robert Beverley, author of a history of Virginia, and their son John was speaker of the house of burgesses and treasurer of the colony.

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Lee, Thomas, president of the council, and acting governor from the death of John Robinson, September 3, 1749, to his own death, November 14, 1750, was born in Westmoreland county, 1693. He was son of Colonel Richard Lee, who was one of the council of Virginia, and grandson of Colonel Richard Lee, who came to Virginia about 1642 and was secretary of state. Thomas Lee received a common education, "yet having strong natural parts, long after he was a man he learned the languages without any assistance but his own genius, and became tolerably adept in the Greek and Latin." He was long a member of the house ob burgesses and the council, and when John Robinson died became by seniority president of the council and as such acting governor. In 1744 he was appointed by Governor Gooch to serve as commissioner with William Beverley to treat with the Six Nations. At Lancaster Pennsylvania, they made a treaty by which the Indians released their title to lands west of the Alleghanies. Thus having cleared the way, Lee became the leading factor in 1749 in the organization of the Ohio Company, which had as one of its objects the severing of the French settlements in Canada and Louisiana. The company obtained from the king a grant of 500,000 acres of land west of the Alleghanies, between the Kanawha and Ohio rivers. It established trading posts, which, being seized by the French, were the direct cause of the French and Indian war. It is said that the king appointed Lee lieutenant-governor in 1750, but he died before the commission reached him. He as married in 1721 to Hannah, daughter of Colonel Philip Ludwell, and had by her six sons, five of them eminently distinguished for their services during the American revolution — Thomas Ludwell Lee, Richard Henry Lee, Francis Lightfoot Lee, William Lee, and Dr. Arthur Lee — and two daughters. His death occurred at Stratford House, in Westmoreland county, Virginia, November 14, 1750; and in the absence of a commissioned governor he was succeeded by Lewis Burwell, member of the council next in seniority.

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Burwell, Lee, president of the council, succeeded on Thomas Lee's death, November 14, 1750, as acting governor of Virginia, and remained such till the arrival of Governor Dinwiddie, November 20, 1751. He was born in 1710, and was the son of Major Nathaniel Burwell, of Carter's Creek, Gloucester county, and Elizabeth Carter his wife, daughter of Colonel Robert Carter, acting governor in 1726. Nathaniel Burwell was the son of Major Lewis Burwell, member of the council in 1702, and of Abigail Smith, niece and heiress of Nathaniel Bacon, Esq., president of the council. Then Major Lewis Burwell was son of Lewis Burwell, sergeant-major of the colony in 1652, and Lucy Higginson, who commanded at Middle Plantation (now Williamsburg) in 1646. This last Major Burwell was the emigrant ancestor, who came to Virginia about 1642, and was son of Edward Burwell of Bedfordshire, England, and Dorothy, his wife, daughter of William Bedell, of Catsworth. President Burwell was educated at the University of Cambridge, England, and was distinguished for his remarkable learning and scholarship. On his return to Virginia from England he was called to fill many important offices; was a burgess from Gloucester county in 1742; a member of the council in 1743, and, as president of that body, succeeded Thomas Lee in the administration of affairs. During his magistracy a contract was made for the repair of the governor's house or palace, and for the incoming governor a building near by was purchased of Dr. Kenneth McKenzie. The capitol, which had been burned in 1746, was also nearly completed. Among other incidents of his administration was the visit of Gov. Ogle of Maryland to Williamsburg, and the coming of a company of tragedians who had been playing in New York and Philadelphia. On November 20, 1751, Colonel Robert Dinwiddie arrived at Yorktown with his lady and two daughters, and the next day was sworn into the office of governor. President Burwell appears to have been in feeble health during his administration, for there is a record of his visit which he paid in the spring of 1750 to the Warm Sulphur Springs, in Berkeley county. He survived, however, till May, 1756, when he died at his seat in Gloucester county, Virginia. He married in October, 1736, Mary, daughter of Colonel Francis and Ann Willis.

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Dinwiddie, Robert, governor of Virginia (November 20, 1751 to January, 1758), was born in 1693, at Germiston, near Glasgow. He came of an ancient Scottish family, and his immediate ancestors were denizens of Glasgow. His father was a reputable merchant of that city and bore the same name. His mother was Sarah Cumming, daughter of Matthew Cumming, who was bailie of Glasgow in 1691-96-99 and the owner of the lands of Carderock in the contiguous parish of Cadder. Robert Dinwiddie, their son was brought up in his father's countinghouse and was probably for a time merchant in Glasgow. He was appointed December 1, 1727, a collector of customs in the island of Bermuda, which position he held till 1738, when in recognition of his exposing a long practiced system of fraud in the collecting of the customs of the West India Islands, he received the appointment of "surveyor-general of customs in the souther parts of the continent of America." He was named as his predecessors had been a member of all the councils of the American colonies. Though his claim to sit in the Virginia council was resisted by the councillors, the board of trade in May, 1742, ordered that the royal purpose should be enforced. On August 17, 1746, he was specially commissioned inspector general to examine into the duties of the collector of customs of the Island of Barbadoes. In the discharge of his duties he exposed a great defalcation in the revenues there. In 1749 he appears to have resided in London as a merchant engaged in trade with the colonies. He was appointed lieutenant-governor of Virginia, July 29, 1751 and with his wife Rebecca née Affleck and two daughters, Elizabeth and Rebecca, arrived in the colony November 20, 1751. His administration began rather inauspiciously, as he almost immediately fell into altercation with the house of burgesses over the fee of a pistole which he required for issuing patents. A similar fee had been exacted by Lord Culpeper many years before, and the remonstrance of the assembly had caused the king to forbid its collection. The Virginians regarded the present fee as a tax, and they sent John Randolph to England to represent their cause. The board of trade, after hearing the argument on both sides, recommended a compromise, and the fee was only permitted to be charged for large grants of land, and for none whatever beyond the mountains, where nearly all the ungranted land lay at this time. This altercation had an important influence upon the endeavors of Dinwiddie in another direction. Dinwiddie had become a member of the Ohio Company and he had a direct interest in the destinies of the western country. When, therefore, the French began to plant settlements on the Ohio and occupied Venango, and Indian trading post at the junction of the Alleghany river and French creek, Dinwiddie sent George Washington to protest to the French commandant at Fort Le Boeuf. When no satisfactory answer was brought back, he sent orders to Captain William Trent to build a log fort at the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela, where Pittsburgh now stands. This position was considered on all hands as the key to the situation in the West. The French were not long in driving the Virginians out and occupying the post themselves. While this was occurring, Washington with some 300 troops was marching to the assistance of Trent, when meeting with a scouting party of the French he attacked and killed some twenty of them, with a loss of only one man. This was the beginning of a war which was to spread practically over the whole civilized world. Dinwiddie more than any one else realized the situation, and he displayed prodigious energy in his efforts to arouse the British government and the colonists to the importance of the crisis. The home government was slow to move and the other colonies generally were indifferent, as was the Virginia assembly itself, who distrusting the purposes of Dinwiddie and deeming him too precipitate would not grant the money asked for, except on conditions calculated to humble the pride of the governor. So during the time that Dinwiddie held the government of Virginia, the war with the French and Indians proved very disastrous. In the attempt to take Fort Duquesne, as the French called the captured post at the forks of the Monongahela and Alleghany, Braddock's army was destroyed, and in the north the French captured Oswego and Fort William Henry. For four years the evil days followed one another, but amid the most disheartening conditions, Robert Dinwiddie remained undismayed. The ardent task of raising unwilling troops and directing the defense of 350 miles of frontier fell to him, and while he did not escape the charge of improper interference at times, on the whole, he discharged his duties ably and nobly.
To the excitement in the colony produced by the French war more was added by the passage in 1755 of the first of the Two Penny Act by the assembly, making the tax for salaries of the ministers payable either in tobacco or in money at two pence per pound, at the option of the tax payer. The ministers tried to get Governor Dinwiddie to veto the bill, but he was beginning to learn the lesson of noninterference with the legislature, and he declined. Worn out at length with the harassing duties of his office, he solicited from the authorities in England permission to return, and so in January, 1758, he departed from the colony, bearing with him the commendations of the assembly and the people of Virginia in general. He marked his interest in the colony by contributing many books to the College Library. He survived his return to England by twelve years, and finally died at Clifton, Bristol, whither he had gone for the benefit of the baths, July 27, 1770, in the 78th year of his age. His brother John was a merchant on the Rappahannock river in Virginia. he married Rosa Enfield Mason, of Stafford county, and is numerously represented in the South.

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Blair, John, president of the council, and as such acting governor of Virginia from the departure for England of Governor Dinwiddie, January, 1758, till the arrival of Governor Francis Fauquier, June 7, 1758, and from the time of Governor Fauquier's death, March 3, 1768, till the arrival of Lord Botetourt, October, 1768. He was son of Dr. Archibald Blair, brother of Dr. James Blair, president of the College of William and Mary, and was born in Virginia in 1687. He was educated at William and Mary College, and was a burgess from Williamsburg in 1736-1740, and in 1743 became a member of the council, an office which he held till his death. During his first administration, which happened during the French and Indian war, the assembly augmented the forces in the pay of the colony to 2,000 men and issued £32,000 in treasury notes to defray the expenses of the increased defences of the colony. In the troubles which led to the American Revolution, Blair was always on the popular side. As a judge of the general court in April, 1764, he upheld the Two Penny Act, and as president of the committee of correspondence he voted to condemn the Stamp Act in June, 1764. When he became acting governor the second time he promptly called the general assembly together to consider the new revenue measures passed by parliament. When the assembly convened, March 31, 1768, he concurred with the council and house of burgesses in the bold resolutions unanimously adopted that only the general assembly could make any laws regarding "the internal policy or taxation of the colony." Blair was the source through which they were transmitted to England, and Lord Hillsborough, the secretary of colonial affairs, expressed himself amazed especially at the action of the council and its president, who were appointed by the Crown. When Norborne Berkeley, Baron de Botetourt, died, October 15, 1770, the government devolved for a third time upon President Blair, but he immediately resigned on account of old age and infirmities and was succeeded by William Nelson. He died in Williamsburg, November 5, 1771, leaving by his wife Mary Monro, daughter of Rev. John Monroe, a son John, member of the federal convention of 1787 and one of the first judges of the Supreme Court of the United States.

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Campbell, John, fourth Earl of Loudoun, and titular governor of Virginia (1756-1763), the only son of Hugh, third Earl of Loudoun, and Lady Margaret Dalrymple, only daughter of the first Earl of Stair, was born on 5 May, 1705. He succeeded his father as earl in 1731, and from 1734 till his death was a representative peer of Scotland. He entered the army in 1727, was appointed gove4nor of Stirling Castle in April, 1741, and became aide-de-camp to the King in July, 1743. He performed an important part in suppressing the rebellion of 1745, and had nearly the whole of his regiment killed at the battle of Preston. On February 17, 1756, Loudoun was appointed captain-general and governor-in-chief of the British forces in America in the French and Indian war. He arrived at new York on July 23, 1756. owing to his own tardiness and the incompetency of those at the head of the government he accomplished nothing, and was therefore recalled to England, General Amherst being named his successor. On the declaration of war with Spain in 1762 he was appointed second in command, under Lord Tyrawley, of the troops sent to Portugal. He died at Loudoun Castle, April 27, 1762. He was unmarried, and on his death his title passed to his cousin, James Mure Campbell. he did much to improve the grounds around Loudoun Castle, in Ayrshire, Scotland.

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Fauquier, Francis, colonial governor of Virginia (1758-1768), was eldest son of Dr. John Francis Fauquier (one of the directors of the Bank of England, who died September 22, 1726), and Elizabeth Chamberlayne, his wife. He was born in 1704, and though little appears to be known of his early life, he was distinguished for his learning, especially in the natural sciences, and in 1753 was made a fellow of the Royal Society. Previous to this, in 1751, he was a director of the South Sea Company. In January, 1758, he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Virginia, and soon after his arrival on June 4, 1758, the clouds which had hitherto hung over the British fortunes in the French and Indian war passed away, and a tide of uninterrupted British success set in. The treaty of peace in 1763 left the British power supreme in America and in the world. There are in the British museum nine letters written by Fauquier between 1759 and 1764, chiefly respecting the military forces of Virginia during his administration. The local agitations which led to the American Revolution began in Fauquier's administration. In these he was, as far as his situation permitted, entirely on the popular side, the natural result of his devotion to scientific matters, which made him hostile to dogmas of all kinds In the matter of the Two Penny Act he gave the parsons to understand, that, law or no law, he was unequivocally against them. In 1760 he expressed great apprehensions to William Pitt that the colonies would not submit to any stamp act. Fauquier was still governor when the stamp act passed, and though he was loyal to his superiors in England, he had no heart in the enforcement of this or of the Revenue act which followed. After the passage of the latter act he prorogued the legislature from time to time both on account of sickness and in order to avoid a quarrel. He was sick a long time, and March 3, 1768,he died, and was buried in the north aisle of the church in Williamsburg. According to his will, proved at Yorktown, he left a wife Catherine; a brother-in-law, William Fauquier; and two sons, Francis and William Fauquier.
Fauquier was a very affable and agreeable man, though somewhat excitable. He was an excellent talker, and delighted in the company of Dr. William Small, the professor of natural philosophy at William and Mary College, and of George Wythe, the great Williamsburg lawyer; and at his table many rising young men of Virginia, like Jefferson and John page, learned their lessons in the rights of man. As an indication of his interest in scientific matters it may be mentioned that his brother William read before the Royal Society in London an article prepared by him in Virginia on "Hailstones observed in Virginia, July 9, 1758." His influence in another respect was not so fortunate. he diffused in the colony a passion for playing cards, which lasted till it was rebuked by the orders of the Revolutionary county committees in 1775.

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Amherst, Jeffrey, titular governor of Virginia (1763-1768), was the second son of Jeffrey Amherst, of Riverhead, Kent county, England. His family had no influence, and the remarkable fact of the rise of Amherst from page to field marshal is a tribute to his own merit. He was page to the Duke of Dorset, who procured for him an ensigncy in the Guards in 1731. He next served on General Ligonier's staff, and afterwards on that of the Duke of Cumberland. In 1756 he was made lieutenant-colonel of the Fifteenth regiment. When Pitt became chancellor, and was fitting out an expedition to North America, he picked out Amherst as the man to lead. The expedition that sailed from Portsmouth in May, 1758, was 14,000 strong, and was embarked in fifteen ships under the command of Admiral Boscawen. On reaching the Island of Cape Breton he captured Louisburg, and in September, Amherst was as a reward appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in the place of James Abercrombie. In November, 1758, he captured Fort Duquesne from the French. He was even more successful in the different campaigns of the next year (1759). Ticonderoga fell before him, and his generals Sir William Johnson and Wolfe took Fort Niagara and Quebec, which in 1760 was followed by the surrender of Montreal, the capital of Canada. Amherst was at once appointed governor-general of North America, and in 1761 received the thanks of parliament and was made a knight of the Bath. The French sued for peace, but war still continued with the Indians. They were led by Pontiac, and Amherst proved unfit to deal with him. His failure no doubt was the chief cause of his return to England in 1763. There Pontiac's conspiracy was unknown, and Amherst was received as the conqueror of Canada and made governor of Virginia and colonel of the 60th or American regiment. His fame became very great. In 1770 he was made governor of Guernsey, and in 1772, a privy councillor and lieutenant-general of the ordinance. During the American war he served in the capacity of adviser to the government. His steady support of the American war endeared him to the King, who made him in 1776 Lord Amherst, in 1778 a general, and in 1780 colonel of the 2nd Horse Grenadiers. After various other honors he was raised in1796 to the rank of field marshal. He did not long survive this last honor, and died at Montreal, his seat in Kent, August 3, 1797.

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Berkeley, Norborne, governor-in-chief of Virginia (1768-1770),was born in England, in 1718. He was the only son of john Symes Berkeley, esq., of Stoke Giford, county Gloucester, England, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of Walter Norborne of Caline, county Wilts. Of this branch of the distinguished and ennobled family of Berkeley an extended pedigree appears in the Visitation of Gloucester of 1623. In 1764 Botetourt was raised to the peerage of England as Norborne, Baron de Botetourt. Previous to this he had been colonel of the North Gloucestershire militia and a member of parliament, and afterwards in 1767 became constable of the Tower of London. No governor-in-chief had resided in the colony of Virginia for three-quarters of a century, and, to appease the growing discontent ther eover the revenue law, the home authorities sent Botetourt over with the full title and dignity of "His Majesty's Lieutenant, Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief." He was appointed in July, 1768, and arrived in the colony October 28, 1769. His reception was enthusiastic, and his affable deportment made him immediately very popular, which was increased by his concurring shortly after his arrival with his council in declaring writs of assistance illegal. The quarrel over teh revenue act had come to a crisis at this time. Parliament had sent an order over for the arrest of the patriot leaders in new England, who were to be transported to England for trial, and Virginia was the first colony to take action. When Botetourt convened the assembly, that body on May 26, 1769, passed stirring resolutions condemning parliament. Botetourt dissolved the assembly, and the members, with the speaker, Peyton Randolph, at their head, met immediately at the Raleigh tavern and adopted an extensive system of non-importation. They rallied all the other colonies to do the same, and parliament, yielding to the pressure, abolished all the taxes complained of except a small tax on tea. Botetourt had cherished the hope that all the taxes would be repealed, and relying upon the assurance of the English secretary of state had called an assembly in November following the May session in 1769 to convey to them the joyous information of this purpose of the British ministry. he was, therefore, greatly disappointed when only a partial repeal was made. It is said that he contemplated a resignation of his office and was only prevented from sending it on by his sickness and death, which occurred October 15, 1770. There are various contemporary notices of his social acts, his dinner companies at the palace, the distinction of his manner, and the urbanity of his address. Through his munificence two gold medals were established in the College of William and Mary, to be given annually one for excellence in classical learning, and the other for excellence in philosophy. Eight of these prizes were bestowed, and they are said to be the earliest of their kind in the United States. Lord Botetourt was honored by the people with a splendid funeral, and he was buried in a vault underneath the floor of the chapel of William and Mary, and subsequently a statue was erected to his memory. Close by his vault lie the remains of Peyton Randolph, who presided over the councils of the Virginia revolutionists, when Botetourt was living, and was afterwards first president of the Continental Congress. Botetourt was a bachelor, and so left no children.

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Nelson, William, president of the council and acting governor (1770-1771), was born in Yorktown, Virginia, in 1711, son of Thomas Nelson (1667-1745), who came to America from Penrith in England, on the borders of Scotland, about 1690, and hence was called "Scotch Tom." This Thomas Nelson settled at Yorktown about 1705, where he became the leading merchant. He married Margaret Reade, daughter of Robert Reade, son of Colonel George Reade, who in 1660 owned the site of the place. Thomas Nelson, a son, became secretary of state. William Nelson, another son and subject of this sketch, inherited a great deal of wealth, which he managed largely to increase by his extensive business as a merchant at Yorktown. He married Elizabeth Burwell, daughter of major Nathaniel Burwell. He represented the county of York in the house of burgesses in 1742-44, and in 1745 was promoted to the council of state. He supported the cause of the colony against the stamp act and the revenue act, and as president of the council acted as governor of the colony from the death of Lord Botetourt, October 15, 1770, to the coming of the Earl of Dunmore in August, 1771. During this interval the opposition to the revenue taxes, which had been shorn down to a slight duty on tea, very sensibly declined, and the agitation in the colonies might have died out altogether had not the British ministry raised new issues. Nelson died at Yorktown, November 19, 1772. He was father of General Thomas Nelson, who distinguished himself in the war of the Revolution and was also governor of the State.

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Murray, John, fourth Earl of Dunmore, last colonial governor of Virginia (1771-1775), was born in 1732, eldest son of William Murray, third Earl of Dunmore, and Catherine Nairne his wife. He was descended on his mother's side from the royal house of Stuart, succeeded to the peerage, and during 1761-69 sat in the house of lords. In January, 1770, he was appointed governor of the colony of New York, and in July, 1771, governor of Virginia. He arrived in "Williamsburg in October, 1771, where he was received with the usual courtesies and congratulations. The controversy with the mother country had lost its rancour after the repeal to all the taxes except that on tea, but the King, by instructions to his governors, managed to affront all the colonies on different issues. The public sentiment in Virginia particular condemned the order which restrained the governors from approving any restriction of the slave trade, and when the assembly, pursuant to a summons from Dunmore met in February, 1772, a noble protest was adopted by that body. Dunmore prorogued the house, and he did not again convene it till March, 1773. In the meantime, a government revenue cutter called the Gaspée, which had been rigorously enforcing the navigation laws in Narragansett Bay, was boarded at night by some disguised men and set on fire. the King was much exasperated, and he created a board of enquiry, who were directed to find out the guilty parties and sent them to England for trial. The issue was once more met by Virginia. the assembly adopted resolutions at its meeting in March, 1773, denouncing this attempt to ignore the right of a trial by a jury of the vicinage, and recommending a system of intercolonial committees, which proved the first direct step towards a general and permanent union. Immediately after this act Lord Dunmore dissolved the assembly. The effect of the action of Virginia was to demoralize the court of enquiry, and in their report they conceded that the commander of the Gaspée, in detaining vessels indiscriminately, had exceeded the bounds of his duty, and no arrests were made. This affair not turning out to the satisfaction of the British government, another attempt was made to enforce the tax on tea in America by removing the tax in England. This occasioned the affair of the "tea party," which occurred in boston on December 16, 1773, when a band of men disguised as Indians boarded the ships sent to Boston by the East India Company and threw the tea overboard. Parliament in resentment, passed an act to close the Port of Boston, on June 1, 1774 — a measure which involved the innocent with the guilty. Virginia again showed her leadership, and was first of all of the colonies to declare her sympathy with Massachusetts. Dunmore prorogued the assembly May 27, 1774, and thereupon the burgesses, meeting in the Raleigh tavern, adopted resolutions calling for an annual congress and non-intercourse. Accordingly on September 5, 1774, the first general congress met in Philadelphia and recommenced a general continental plan of non-intercourse, and committees every where to see it enforced. About this time a war with the Shawnees on the Ohio broke out, and Andrew Lewis won the great battle of Point Pleasant. Dunmore gained applause from the Virginians for his willingness to head the troops, but he was afterwards charged, without much reason, with being the real author of the Indian war. The British government now placed the trade with most of the colonies under a boycott, and orders were sent over to the governors to seize all the ammunition and arms accessible to the colonists.
Governor Gage in Massachusetts sent troops to destroy the ammunition at Concord, and on the march thither they became engaged April 19, 1775, with the Massachusetts militia at Lexington, where the first blood was shed. In Virginia, by order of Governor Dunmore, the powder was removed from the magazine in Williamsburg on April 20. This created great alarm, and an armed body of men under Patrick Henry marched down to Williamsburg. They were quieted by the governor giving a bill of exchange for the value of the powder. Succeeding this, Dunmore called a meeting of the assembly to submit the overture known as Lord North's "Olive Branch." But before any answer could be returned from the assembly, Dunmore, fearing that he might be seized and detained as a hostage, fled from the palace to the protection of a British man-of-war in York river. Dunmore took up his headquarters near Norfolk, which was burned in the civil war that now began. Dunmore proclaimed freedom to all negroes and servants who would join his standard, and carried on a predatory maritime warfare, but after suffering various reverses at Great Bridge, Hampton and Gwynn's Island, he dismissed his ships, joined the British naval force in New York, and towards the end of the year 1776 sailed away to England. His furniture and books in the palace were confiscated by the State and sold at public outcry. He had been elected in January, 1776, to the house of lords, and on his return to "England took his seat and served till 1784. In 1787 he was appointed governor of Barbadoes, and served till 1796. He died at Ramsgate, England, in May, 1809. He was a man of culture, and possessed a large and valuable library; and while he has been represented in America as rude in his deportment and treacherous in his conduct, his friends praise him for the noble and admirable traits of character, which they attribute to him. The Tories who had to fly from Virginia during the war, abandoning everything except loyalty to their King, found in him a real haven of refuge in London. His home and money were at their service. He married February 21, 1759, Lady Charlotte Stewart, sixth daughter of Alexander, sixth earl of Gallway. Late in April, 1774, he was joined at Williamsburg by his wife and children, George Lord Fincastle, the Honorables Alexander and John Murray, and Ladies Catherine, Augusta and Susan Murray. To these were added another daughter born in the colony, and named in its honor Virginia. The three young noblemen were put to school at the College. In 1834 Charles Murray, a grandson of Lord Dunmore, visited Virginia, and afterwards published an account of his travels.