George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 7, 4th edition.

[277] a premium for the manufacture of gunpowder. The

Chap. XXV.} 1775. April.

independent company of Dumfries could be depended upon for any service which respected the liberties of America. The Albemarle volunteers ‘were ready to resent arbitrary power, or die in the attempt.’ ‘I expect the magistrates of Williamsburg, on their allegiance,’ such was Dunmore's message, ‘to stop the march of the people now on their way, before they enter this city; otherwise it is my fixed purpose to arm all my own negroes, and receive and declare free all others that will come to me. I do enjoin the magistrates and all loyal subjects, to repair to my assistance, or I shall consider the whole country in rebellion, and myself at liberty to annoy it by every possible means; and I shall not hesitate at reducing houses to ashes, and spreading devastation wherever I can reach.’ To the secretary of state he wrote: ‘With a small body of troops and arms, I could raise such a force from among Indians, negroes, and other persons, as would soon reduce the refractory people of this colony to obedience.’

On Saturday, the twenty-ninth of April, there were at Fredericksburg upwards of six hundred well armed men. A council of one hundred and two weighed the moderating advice received from Washington and Peyton Randolph, and they agreed to disperse; yet not till they had pledged to each other their lives and fortunes, to reassemble at a moment's warning, and by force of arms to defend the law, the liberty, and rights of Virginia, or any sister colony, from unjust and wicked invasion. Did they forebode that the message from a sister colony was already on the wing?