The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Cardinal News has embarked on a three-year project to tell the little-known stories of Virginia’s role in the march to independence. As part of this, I’m writing monthly columns about the politics of the era, written the same way I’d write them today. The events described here took place in September 1775. You can sign up for our monthly newsletter here:
Virginia’s royal governor at this moment may be floating somewhere on a British warship, perhaps in the Chesapeake Bay, maybe the harbor at Hampton Roads or one of the many tributaries whose waters flow into those bodies. We heard most recently that he was anchored at Gosport, a small shipyard just west of Norfolk, but wherever his headquarters might be, it’s certainly not in the capital of Williamsburg.
Perhaps it is time to ask: Will he ever return?
Do we even want him to?
The former is uncertain, but the weight of public opinion on the latter is much clearer: Good riddance.
Lord Dunmore wasn’t popular when he arrived in Virginia, and he certainly wasn’t popular when the people of Williamsburg chased him out to sea in June. In between, he enjoyed only a brief surge of popularity when he led a military expedition to clear the native tribes out of the Alleghenies all the way to the Ohio River. Even then, the main work — and the main glory — went not to our royal governor, but to Andrew Lewis of Roanoke County and the frontiersmen he led.
We are now in a situation we did not seek and have no precedent for: We still profess our loyalty to King George III — our argument is officially with Parliament, not the crown — but there is no royal authority in the land except for whatever waterways around Norfolk that Lord Dunmore commands.
Is there any authority at all? The House of Burgesses has not met since June. Our only government appears to be the Virginia Convention, the third iteration of which met in July and August and named Patrick Henry as commander-in-chief of Virginia’s own army. Is Patrick Henry essentially our governor now?
He is who we look to for leadership — along with other notables — but London insists that the Virginia Convention is, along with its larger counterpart, the Continental Congress, a rogue entity with no basis in law.
It’s all rather confusing, except for one thing: Lord Dunmore right now is probably the most despised person in Virginia, if he can even be said to be in Virginia.
We must remember that Lord Dunmore never wanted to be in Virginia in the first place. He may not even have wanted to be in North America at all, had it not been for financial hardships that he ran into at home that forced him to seek a royal appointment for the salary that would bring. Politically, he attached himself to the Bedford Whigs, also known simply as the Bedfordites, for their allegiance to the 4th Duke of Bedford, who is well-known to have hardline views toward the Colonies — that we exist simply to be a market for London merchants, but not necessarily the other way around, except for our tobacco. The Bedfordites would have us produce nothing that we can’t buy more expensively from London, which keeps us in a constant state of debt and subjugation.
Dunmore’s allegiance to the Bedfordites helped him secure an appointment as governor of New York in 1770, where he promptly got into a dispute over how much he should be paid. The Bedford Whigs are well-known for being a rapacious lot when it comes to the public treasury, so Dunmore’s unseemly salary dispute was very much in keeping with his political allies in Britain.
Dunmore was barely settled in New York when tragedy struck in Virginia: Our governor died. Like Dunmore, Lord Botetourt had come to the Colonies to escape financial difficulties at home. However, Lord Botetourt, during his brief stay among us, was a popular fellow. He attended morning prayers with the students at the College of William & Mary; he created the Botetourt Medal to serve as an academic prize. We all believed he was sympathetic to Colonial causes, although, after his untimely death, we learned he was secretly advising the crown to stand firm against Colonists who insisted that Parliament had no right to tax them. He is hardly the first politician revealed to be duplicitous. Still, the good feelings about Lord Botetourt remain because he was such a congenial gentleman. Lord Dunmore is no Lord Botetourt.
When London told Dunmore he was being promoted to governor of Virginia, he resisted, claiming our warmer climate would be bad for his Scottish Highland family. He ultimately came to Virginia, but his reception was not a warm one, politically speaking: Who prefers New York to Virginia? He arrived with a black mark already against his name.
To be fair, Dunmore tried to ingratiate himself with Virginians. He bought a plantation in York County. He named his new daughter Virginia. He sent his sons to William & Mary. The House of Burgesses followed custom by naming a county after him (modern editor’s note: It’s now Shenandoah County) and another after his son, the Viscount Fincastle (modern editor’s note: It was disbanded and carved into three counties, Montgomery, Washington and Kentucky, which eventually became a state).
Most importantly, Dunmore pressed Virginia’s land claims to the west, particularly around Fort Pitt — which Pennsylvanians want for their own — and as far west as the Ohio. He even got a war named after him, Lord Dunmore’s War. At that point, just last autumn, Dunmore was at the height of his popularity.
Now, scarcely a year later, Lord Dunmore is not welcome on Virginia’s shores, not after he tried to spirit Williamsburg’s supply of gunpowder onto a British ship amid the tumult earlier this year that followed Henry’s stirring declaration of “give me liberty or give me death!” Dunmore sniffed rebellion in the air and sought to deprive Virginians of the means to carry it out. That attempt prompted an actual rebellion, with Henry leading a militia march on Williamsburg that eventually led to the gunpowder being returned and Dunmore skedaddling for the safety of a British vessel.
As autumn ripples across Virginia, we are in a state of anxiety. Blood has been shed in Massachusetts. General George Washington now lays siege to Boston, as the British assemble a growing force. We have armies on the march into Quebec in hopes of persuading those former French colonists to join with us. The king, to whom we have sworn loyalty, has declared us to be in rebellion, even though we quarrel only with a Parliament, to whom we owe no allegiance. War feels close at hand, even if our governor is not.
Sources consulted: Encyclopedia Virginia, “Virginia: The New Dominion” by Virginius Dabney and “The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III,” by Andrew Roberts.