1767 George Wythe + Thomas Nelson, Virginia Declaration of Independence Signers For Sale
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1767 George Wythe + Thomas Nelson, Virginia Declaration of Independence Signers:
$39995.00
1767 George Wythe + Thomas Nelson, Virginia Declaration of Independence Signers! Important 1767 Colonial Virginia “Performance Bond” to King George III Signed By George Wythe, Thomas Nelson & Fourteen Prominent Noted Virginians for 100,000(Our Cover Illustration Item)
GEORGE WYTHE and THOMAS NELSON, Both Rare Virginia Signers of the Declaration of Independence, and a future Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and Fourteen others Prominent Virginians of the period including:1. ROBERT CARTER NICHOLAS (1728-1780) Treasurer for the Colony of Virginia.2. JOHN BLAIR JR. (1732-1800) American Founding Father, Politician and U.S. Supreme Court Justice.3. WILLIAM NELSON (1711-1772) American planter, politician, and colonial leader, served as Governor of Colonial Virginia in 1770 and 1771.4. THOMAS NELSON JR. (1738-1789) Signer of the Declaration of Independence, represented Virginia in the Continental Congress and was its Governor in 1781, regarded a Founding Father.5. RICHARD CORBIN (ca. 1708-1790) As Receiver General, through his influence George Washington received his first Military Commission in 1754.6. ROBERT "Councillor" CARTER III (1727/28-1804). American plantation owner who for two decades sat on the Virginia Governor's Council.7. ROBERT BURWELL (1720-1777) Member of the House of Burgesses (1752-1758) and the Governor's Council (1762-1776).8. RICHARD BLAND (1710-1776) Virginia cousin of Thomas Jefferson, served in the House of Burgesses, was a Delegate to the Continental Congress in 1774 and 1775.9. CHARLES CARTER (1732-1796) Member: House of Burgesses (1756-1771 & 1774-1775), House of Delegates (1776-1779 & 1782-1783), Senate of Virginia (1789) and Council of State (1789-1791).10. WILSON MILES CARY (1734-1817) Virginia Statesman.11. EDWARD AMBLER (1733-1768) Died within one year of signing this as a Guarantor.FIVE Others Sign as “Witnesses” (See Text and Extensive Online Profiles):12. GEORGE WYTHE (1726-1806); 13. JAMES MERCER (1736-1793); 14. FRANCIS EPPES (or Epes) VI (c. 1740-1794); 15. RICHARD CARY (1730-1789) 16. EDWARD AMBLER (1733-1768).
April 10, 1767-Dated, Historic & Important Manuscript Document Signed, Colonial Virginia 100,000 Fiscal Government Funding Performance Bond, Signed by 16 Prominent Virginians, including Two Signers of the Declaration of Independence, George Wythe and Thomas Nelson, a future Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and fourteen others. Such Performance Bonds and Mortgage Bonds were used commonly before the direct Colonial obligations of Provinces, Colonies, Commonwealths, etc. were used. As such they are an important originator of the Bond in modern financial use.This exceedingly rare original Virginia Document is a Performance Bond to King George III of Great Britain in the large sum of One Hundred Thousand Pounds. It specifically states being for the good Performance of Robert Carter Nicholas, as "Treasurer of the Revenues arising from Liquors & Slaves imported into this Colony and all other publick monies payable into the Treasury of this Colony for publick uses by virtue of any Act or Acts of Assembly... Now if the said Robert Carter Nicholas shall well & truly answer and pay all the money by him received and to be received from time to time by virtue of any Act or Acts of Assembly of this Colony and shall duly & faithfully perform the said Office of Treasurer in all things according to the direction of the Assembly then this obligation to be void, else to remain in full force & virtue."“Performance Bonds” were Agreements between wealthy and/or important citizens, meant that they took responsibility and personally stood by the specific person in question provided funds. Should that person fail in his duties or violated his trust in repayment, they were similarly obligated to pay the debt to whatever sum of money was so ordered. (cosigning a Loan). This Performance Bond was issued for the staggering sum of One Hundred Thousand Pounds and indicates the importance of the office. A Colonial Treasurer could expect to control possibly Millions of Pounds, so this added was security protection for Virginia was agreed to in case of any impropriety.Robert Carter Nicholas, Colonial Treasurer, is the First Signer of this Document. Those who Signed as Guarantors of the bond follow. Note - Two other Signatories; Mann Page II and John Page, were mentioned within the text of this Document but did not actually sign in the spaces left for them, between Burwell and Bland's signatures. Also, there are Five men who Signed as “Witnesses” to the other Signatures of the “Guarantors”. The Witnesses Including:1. GEORGE WYTHE (1726-1806). The First American Law Professor and a Virginia Judge, First (of the seven) Virginia Signatories of the United States Declaration of Independence, Virginia Representatives to the Continental Congress and the Philadelphia Convention, taught and was a mentor to Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, Henry Clay and others who became important American leaders.2. JAMES MERCER (1736-1793). (aka William James Mercer) American soldier, jurist and political figure.3. FRANCIS EPPES (or Epes) VI (c. 1740-1794). First cousin and his wife was a half-sister to Martha Wayles, who married Thomas Jefferson and lived at Monticello. He was a lawyer.4. RICHARD CARY (1730-1789). Clerk, House of Burgesses, Committee of Trade, Warwick County Committee of Safety, 1774-1775 State Delegate, 1776 and Delegate Virginia Convention of 1776, VA. General Assembly and Court of Admiralty on December 17, 1776.5. EDWARD AMBLER (1733-1768). Collector for the Port of York River, Member House of Burgesses, died suddenly in 1768, aged only 35.First, this is a perfect piece for any true Virginia Museum/Archive or Institution, or advanced Colonial America Fiscal or Autograph Collection. Secondarily, someone assembling a complete Signer of the Declaration of Independence set. In a distant third place financial history collectors who appreciate the modern American financial bond origins of Colonial performance bonds. The single most historic and important Signed Document on Colonial Virginia we have ever offered. It is not only unique, and it stands as a truly sensational Colonial Virginia collector or institutional treasure.
Robert Carter Nicholas (1728-1780) was a Virginia lawyer and political figure. He served in the Virginia House of Burgesses, the General Assembly, and the Court of Appeals, predecessor of the Supreme Court of Virginia; studied law at the College of William and Mary and practiced in the general court under the royal government. He served in the House of Burgesses, 1755-61 as the representative from York County, and from 1766-1775 as the representative of James City County, and was Treasurer for the Colony of Virginia, 1766-1775. From 1761 to 1774, Nicholas was one of the trustees of the Bray school - a charity school for black children - in Williamsburg, Virginia. He was the principal correspondent with Dr. Bray's Associates in England, who financed the school.In October 1765 Nicholas, along with John Randolph and George Wythe, was part of committee that heard Thomas Jefferson's bar examinations. Later when Nicholas became Treasurer of Virginia, he stopped taking new cases and turned over many of his existing cases to Jefferson. When in 1769 Peyton Randolph, Speaker of the House of Burgesses, chose Thomas Jefferson to write a response to Royal Governor Lord Botetourt's opening remarks to the House, his motions although accepted and passed were felt in committee to be "lean and tepid" requiring rewrite by Nicholas. Jefferson never forgot this humiliation. In fact, in 1774 Jefferson had to rewrite a motion written by Nicholas objecting to the next Royal Governor Lord Dunmore's land proclamation. Also in May 1774, Nicholas introduced a motion written by Thomas Jefferson making June 1 a "day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer" to express sympathy of Virginia for their sister colony of Massachusetts as a result of the closing of the Port of Boston by the British under the Boston Port Act. On December 13, 1775 Nicholas after the battle of Great Bridge introduced a motion in the House of Burgesses denouncing Lord Dunmore as champion of "tyranny" a monster, "inimical and cruel" for pronouncing martial law and assuming powers, the "King himself could not exercise." Two days later he also submitted a motion to grant pardons to black slaves who he claimed had been deluded by the British to join Loyalist forces. Nicholas opposed the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, but he was a member of the committee appointed to draft a declaration of rights and a new form of government for Virginia. He was a member of the Virginia General Assembly from 1776 to 1778 and in 1779 was appointed to the high court of chancery. Consequently, he became a member of the first Court of Appeals, predecessor of the Supreme Court of Virginia. Judge Nicholas died the next year in 1780.Nicholas was the first Signer of this Document. Those who Signed as Guarantors of the bond are:John Blair Jr. (1732-1800). American politician, Founding Father and U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Blair was one of the best-trained jurists of his day. A famous legal scholar, he avoided the tumult of state politics, preferring to work behind the scenes. But he was devoted to the idea of a permanent union of the newly independent states and loyally supported fellow Virginians James Madison and George Washington at the Constitutional Convention. His greatest contribution as a Founding Father came not in Philadelphia, but later as a judge on the Virginia court of appeals and on the U.S. Supreme Court, where he influenced the interpretation of the Constitution in a number of important decisions. Contemporaries praised Blair for such personal strengths as gentleness and benevolence, and for his ability to penetrate immediately to the heart of a legal question.William Nelson (1711-1772). American planter, politician, and colonial leader from Yorktown, Virginia. In the interim between the royal governors Norborne Berkeley and Lord Dunmore, he served as governor of colonial Virginia in 1770 and 1771. In the early stages of the American Revolution he was an active supporter of the colonial cause, and his son Thomas Nelson Jr., went on to sign the Declaration of Independence. Nelson 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.Thomas Nelson Jr. (1738-1789). American planter, soldier, and statesman from Yorktown, Virginia and a Signer of the Declaration of Independence. He represented Virginia in the Continental Congress and was its Governor in 1781. He is regarded as one of the U.S. Founding Fathers. He signed the Declaration of Independence as a member of the Virginia delegation and fought in the militia during the Siege of Yorktown. He is the son of William Nelson. Thomas was first elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1761. The following year he married Lucy Grymes (her maternal uncle was Peyton Randolph, a brother-in-law of Congressman Benjamin Harrison V; her paternal aunt was the mother of "Light Horse Harry" Lee III). Nelson's first term in the Congress continued until 1776, when a bout of illness forced his resignation. While a member of Congress, Nelson still found time to return home and play a key role in Virginia's Constitutional Convention in the spring of 1776. He returned to Congress in time to sign the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Nelson was one of the thirteen committee members appointed in the Continental Congress on June 12, 1776, to "prepare and digest the form of confederation" which led to the Articles of Confederation. He was commanding General of the Lower Virginia Militia, and succeeded Thomas Jefferson as governor of Virginia (after William Fleming's nine days as acting governor). Nelson himself was engaged in the final Siege of Yorktown. According to legend, he urged General Washington (or, in some versions, the Marquis de Lafayette) to fire on his own home, the Nelson House, where Cornwallis had his headquarters, offering five guineas to the first man to hit his house.Richard Corbin (ca. 1708-1790) was educated in William and Mary College and probably also in England, and early in life was appointed a justice in Middlesex county. He represented this county in the house of burgesses in 1751 (and doubtless for several years before) and was, during that session of the assembly, appointed to the council, in which body he sat until the revolution. Col. Corbin was appointed receiver general of Virginia about 1754, an office which he also held until the close of the colonial regime. Through his influence George Washington received his first military commission. In 1754, young Washington wrote to Col. Corbin asking a commission in the military service of the colony. A major's commission was obtained and sent him with the following letter: Dear George: I enclose your commission. God prosper you with it. Your Friend, Richard Corbin. Col. Corbin rendered efficient service in council during the French and Indian war, and received, along with Washington, William Fairfax, Gov. Dinwiddie and some others, a Medal as a sign of Royal approbation.Robert "Councillor" Carter III (1727/28-1804). American plantation owner who for two decades sat on the Virginia Governor's Council. With the assistance of Baptist, Quaker and Swedenborgian faithful, Carter began what became the largest release of slaves in North America prior to the American Civil War. Carter was the son of Robert Carter II of Nomini and grandson of Robert "King" Carter. His father died when he was four years old and his uncles John, Landon, and Charles Carter acted as his guardians. His mother's second husband was Colonel John Lewis of Warner Hall in Gloucester County. Robert III entered the Grammar School at the College of William and Mary when he was nine years old. When Robert Carter III reached his majority, he became the master of 70,000 acres of land and many slaves. He then went to London for two years where he was admitted to the Inner Temple for the study of law and enjoyed the metropolitan life of London, returning to Virginia in 1751. In the 1750s, Carter lived at his father's house, Nomini Hall, in Westmoreland County, where he managed his vast agricultural and commercial holdings. He improved his education by amassing an impressive library and reading history, law, and philosophy as he continued to do for the rest of his life. Carter stood for election to the House of Burgesses twice but was not elected by the freeholders of his county. In 1758, at the age of 30, he was appointed to the Virginia Council where he served until 1772 under governors Dinwiddie, Fauquier, Botetourt, and Dunmore. In March, 1761 he moved his large family to Williamsburg, into the house built by his grandfather next to the Governor's Palace. There he took part in the critical political discussions and decisions pertaining to the role of British authority in Virginia before the Revolution. During this period he became part of the social and intellectual circle that influenced the young Thomas Jefferson, including George Wythe, Governor Francis Fauquier, and William Small, Professor of Mathematics at the College of William and Mary. These cultivated gentlemen exposed both Jefferson and Carter to Enlightenment ideals and rational religion. In 1772, Carter returned to private life at Nomini Hall. There he managed his scattered lands and some 350 slaves. Near the end of the colonial period, he remained circumspect about his allegiances and he did not volunteer for political or military service during the Revolution. He did, however, sign the Virginia loyalty oath and supported the non-importation agreements drawn up by the First Continental Congress. In 1791, he executed a deed of emancipation, by which all of his 500 some slaves were freed as rapidly as Virginia state law permitted. After providing for the liberation of his slaves and turning over the management of his plantations to others, Robert Carter left Nomini Hall in 1793 (six years after the death of his wife) for Baltimore, Maryland, a center for followers of Swedenborg. He died there in 1804, at age 76.Robert Burwell (1720-1777) was a member of the House of Burgesses (1752-1758), representing Isle of Wight County, and the governor's Council (1762-1776). Active in land development, he was a trustee of the town of Smithfield and an investor in the Dismal Swamp Company. His appointment to the governor's Council in 1762 aroused anger among his contemporaries because of Burwell's bad temper and rumored mental deficiencies. His service on the Council allayed these fears, and he served throughout the remainder of the colonial period. Like many of his contemporaries, he experienced financial difficulties in the 1770s. For unknown reasons he took no part in the government formed by the new commonwealth of Virginia in 1776. In April 1762, following the death of Philip Grymes, a member of the Council and a relative by marriage of Carter Burwell, family or business associates in London quietly and quickly arranged for Robert Burwell's appointment to the Council. When the news reached Williamsburg at the end of July it provoked shock and disbelief because, as Lieutenant Governor Francis Fauquier put it, of some rumored defect in Burwell's "mental Qualifications, and an unwarrantable Impetuosity of Temper." Burwell duly took the oath and was admitted to the Council on July 30, 1762, but at that same meeting his kinsman Thomas Nelson suggested that the Council adopt an address to the king requesting "that he would be graciously pleas'd to appoint some other more able and discreet Person in the Room of Mr. Burwell." The other councillors postponed the motion, and after Burwell had served on the Council for a few months Fauquier admitted that the doubts about his fitness to serve had subsided. Burwell sat on the Council throughout the remainder of the colonial period. Burwell had financial problems. Early in the 1770s he attempted to sell some of his land. He eventually had to bequeath a plantation to his son-in-law because he could not raise the 1,000 cash dowry he had promised his daughter at the time of her marriage to John Page (1743-1808), of Rosewell, who was a member of the Council at the end of the colonial period, its first president under the Constitution of 1776, and still later governor of Virginia. Early in March 1770 Burwell's wife died, plunging him into depression. Both of his children were by then grown and living away from home, and he had nothing to occupy his time except financial worries. Burwell's loneliness came to an end on the last day of December 1774, when he married Mary Blair Braxton, widow of George Braxton (d. 1761) and a sister-in-law of Carter Braxton, who was another signer of the Declaration of Independence and who later served on the Council of State. Nothing is definitely known about Burwell's attitude toward the imperial crises that resulted in independence in 1776. Whether because of some lingering uncertainties about his intelligence or temperament, some unrecorded Loyalist leanings, or premonitions of failing health, nobody seriously considered him for any responsible position when the new government of the commonwealth of Virginia was established in July 1776. Burwell lived quietly with his second wife at her Newington estate in King and Queen County until his death there on January 30, 1777.Richard Bland (1710-1776). American planter and statesman from Virginia and a cousin of Thomas Jefferson. He served for many terms in the House of Burgesses, and was a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1774 and 1775. Bland served as a Justice of the Peace in Prince George County, and was made a militia officer in 1739. In 1742 he was first elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, where he served successive terms until it was suppressed during the American Revolution. Bland's thoughtful work made him one of its leaders, although he was never a strong speaker. He frequently served on committees whose role was to negotiate or frame laws and treaties. Sometimes described as a bookish scholar as well as farmer, Bland read law, and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1746. He did not practice before the courts, but collected legal documents and became known for his expertise in Virginia and British history and law. Bland often published pamphlets (frequently anonymously), as well as letters. His first widely distributed public paper came as a result of the Parson's Cause, which was a debate from 1759 to 1760 over the established church and the kind and rate of taxes used to pay the Anglican clergy. His pamphlet A Letter to the Clergy on the Two-penny Act was printed in 1760, as he opposed increasing pay and the creation of a bishop for the colonies. An early critic of slavery, though a slaveholder, Bland stated "under English government all men are born free", which prompted considerable debate with John Camm, a professor at Bland's alma mater, the College of William and Mary. When the Stamp Act created controversy throughout the colonies, Richard Bland thought through the entire issue of parliamentary laws as opposed to those that originated in the colonial assemblies. While others, particularly James Otis, get more credit for the idea of "no taxation without representation", the full argument for this position seems to come from Bland. In early 1766, he wrote An Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies. It was published in Williamsburg and reprinted in England. Richard's Inquiry examined the relationship of the king, parliament, and the colonies. While he concluded that the colonies were subject to the crown, and that colonists should enjoy the rights of Englishmen, he questioned the presumption that total authority and government came through parliament and its laws. Thomas Jefferson described the work as "the first pamphlet on the nature of the connection with Great Britain which had any pretension to accuracy of view on that subject.... There was more sound matter in his pamphlet than in the celebrated Farmer's letters." In 1774, the Virginia Burgesses sent Bland to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. A number of the views he had expressed in An Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies found their way into the first session of the Congress and were included in its Declaration of Rights. In 1775, as revolution neared in Virginia, the Virginia Convention replaced the Burgesses and the Council as a form of ad-hoc government. That year he met with the Burgesses and with the three sessions of the convention. In March, after Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" speech, he was still opposed to taking up arms. He believed that reconciliation with England was still possible and desirable. Nevertheless, he was named to the committee of safety and re-elected as a delegate to the national Congress. In May he travelled to Philadelphia for the opening of the Second Continental Congress, but soon returned home, withdrawing due to the poor health and failing eyesight of old age. However, his radicalism had increased, and by the Convention's meeting in July, he proposed hanging Lord Dunmore, the royal governor. In the first convention meeting of 1776, Richard Bland declined a re-election to the Third Continental Congress, citing his age and health. However, he played an active role in the remaining conventions. He served on the committee which drafted Virginia's first constitution in 1776. When the House of Delegates for the new state government was elected, he was one of the members. He died while serving in the new House, on October 26, 1776 at Williamsburg, Virginia.Charles Carter (1732-1796). American statesman from Virginia, Carter served as a member of the House of Burgesses (1756-1771, 1774-1775), the House of Delegates (1776-1779, 1782-1783), the Senate of Virginia (1789), and the Council of State (1789-1791). A lesser light in one of the greatest planting families of eighteenth-century Virginia, Carter exemplified the traditional gentry pattern of public service in spite of his financial perils. His indebtedness and loss of land did not prevent him from serving as a justice of the peace in both of the counties in which he lived and becoming a colonel in the militia. In 1756 Carter was elected to the House of Burgesses from King George County. Regularly reelected, he served for fifteen years. He usually held a seat on the Committee of Propositions and Grievances, which his father chaired, and took a responsible part in the assembly's work. Carter may have stood for the House from Stafford County in 1771 after relocating there, but if so, he was not elected. He may have won an interim election two years later, but he did not take his House seat again until the short session of May 1774. Carter served on the Committees on Privileges and Elections and of Propositions and Grievances in the final meeting of the House of Burgesses in June 1775. Carter supported the colony's protests against British policies on the eve of the American Revolution and served in the first four conventions that met between the summer of 1774 and January 1776. He left the fourth convention to begin directing the production of saltpeter at several northern Virginia manufactories. Although he was not elected to the fifth and climactic Revolutionary Convention, he served in the House of Delegates from October 1776 until October 1779, when he gave up his seat to become sheriff of Stafford County. During most sessions Carter was named to the Committees of Privileges and Elections (which he chaired during the two 1778 sessions), of Propositions and Grievances, and of Religion. He returned to the House of Delegates again in 1782 and 1783, resumed his seats on the three major standing committees, and in the October 1782 and October 1783 assembly sessions chaired the Committee of Propositions and Grievances. Carter favored adoption of the Constitution in 1788 and was an unsuccessful candidate for the Virginia ratification convention. By letting a private letter from George Washington endorsing the proposed constitution become public, Carter perhaps aided the cause more than he would have had he been elected. In 1789 Carter won election to a four-year term in the Senate of Virginia representing the counties of King George, Stafford, and Westmoreland. On November 28 of that year, less than six weeks into the first session, the General Assembly elected Carter to the Council of State, for which service he earned a welcomed salary. He took his seat on December 2, 1789, and served faithfully, though uneventfully, for fourteen months. On November 12, 1790, in compliance with the state constitution, the assembly removed two members, Carter and his kinsman Carter Braxton. Carter attended his last meeting on February 8, 1791. Despite his financial reversals, Carter retained considerable property, including a large number of slaves, and he tried to produce profitable crops. Creditors continued to hound him, and he eventually lost almost all of his remaining real property, including Ludlow, which he offered for sale in the spring of 1788. He moved to Fredericksburg, where his wife was reduced to advertising for boarders attending a nearby academy. Once a great planter, Carter repeatedly appealed to Washington during the 1790s for assistance for his sons, one of whom he had bound to a Philadelphia coachmaker and two others to planters. A fourth son studied medicine in Philadelphia. Through the generosity of his cousin Charles Carter, who allowed Carter's wife to retain the earnings of several slaves whom Carter had been forced to sell him, the Carters kept just out of poverty during their final years. Carter died in Fredericksburg on April 29, 1796, and was buried in the Willis family cemetery in that town.Wilson Miles Cary (1734-1817). Virginia statesman, known for obstructing the flow of British goods into Virginia after the non-importation acts. Cary entered public life in 1757 when he was commissioned a justice of the peace in Warwick County and elected to the parish vestry. The following year he became a lieutenant colonel in the militia. Succeeding his father in 1761 to a customs post as naval officer of the lower district of the James River, he moved to Elizabeth City County early the following year and served on the court of that county for nearly forty years and also as colonel of the militia. In 1767 Cary became an Elizabeth City parish vestryman. From 1766 to 1771 he represented Elizabeth City County in the House of Burgesses, where he served on the Committee for Propositions and Grievances and the Committee for Religion. Cary signed the nonimportation associations in 1769 and 1770 opposing British tax policies and used his post as naval officer to monitor enforcement of those agreements. After the nonimportation clauses of the Continental Association of 1774 went into effect, he obstructed the flow of banned goods. The following summer, after Cary spread news of the arrival in Virginia of a British warship, the royal governor described him as "one of the most active and virulent of the Enemies of Government." Cary closed his office in the autumn of 1775, an act that may have cost him as much as 500 a year. He was elected to the Elizabeth City County Committee that November and on 25 April 1776 was elected to the fifth and final Revolutionary Convention. A member of the Committee on Privileges and Elections, Cary also served on the ad hoc committee formed to oversee the establishment of the Virginia State Navy. He was almost certainly present for the unanimous votes for independence on 15 May 1776, to adopt the Declaration of Rights on 12 June, and to approve the first constitution of the commonwealth on 29 June.A member of the House of Delegates during the October 1776 session, Cary again served on the Committee of Privileges and Elections. By the following year he was living temporarily in the new county of Fluvanna and was appointed to its county court and returned to the House in 1777 and 1778. He sat on the Committee for Religion during the former session and the Committees of Privileges and Elections, of Propositions and Grievances, and for Religion during the latter term. By 1780 he was living at Scotchtown, in Hanover County, which he purchased from Patrick Henry. Elected, nevertheless, to the House of Delegates that year from Elizabeth City County, Cary was once again appointed to the Committees of Privileges and Elections and of Propositions and Grievances, but his election was ruled illegal under the Constitution of 1776 because he resided in Hanover County. By 1783 Cary had moved to Warwick County, where voters elected him to the House of Delegates for two consecutive sessions. In 1783 he chaired the Committee of Privileges and Elections, and the next year he again served on that committee, chaired the Committee for Religion, and sat on the Committee of Propositions and Grievances. Cary later returned to Elizabeth City County and was elected to the House in 1795 and 1796. During the 1795 session he chaired the Committee of Religion and served on the Committees of Privileges and Elections, of Propositions and Grievances, of Claims, and of Courts of Justice. He sat on each of these committees except Courts of Justice in the following term. He became a staunch Federalist during the 1790s and closed his political career in March 1799 by entering his condemnation of the Virginia Resolutions, which opposed the Alien and Sedition Acts, into the Elizabeth City County records.Edward Ambler (1733-1768). Edward attended Cambridge University in England. His father, Richard Ambler, died in 1766, and his will divided his estate among his three sons. To Edward, the oldest son, he left his holdings on Main Street in Yorktown. John inherited most of the Jamestown holdings and also acquired a seat in the House of Burgesses. Jaquelin inherited various Jamestown and Yorktown properties. John died soon after his father in 1766, and Edward was given John's properties. Edward moved from Yorktown to Jamestown, replacing John in the House of Burgesses and as Collector at Yorktown. Edward died in 1768, and his widow, Mary, and their children continued to live on Jamestown Island until the American Revolution. Richard Ambler died in 1766, and his will divided his estate among his three sons. To Edward, the oldest son, he left his holdings on Main Street in Yorktown. John inherited most of the Jamestown holdings and also acquired a seat in the House of Burgesses. Jaquelin inherited various Jamestown and Yorktown properties. John died soon after his father in 1766, and Edward was given John's properties. Edward moved from Yorktown to Jamestown, replacing John in the House of Burgesses and as Collector at Yorktown. Edward died in 1768, and his widow, Mary, and their children continued to live on Jamestown Island until the American Revolution.The above men were the guarantors of the bond. Two others, Mann Page II and John Page were mentioned in the text but did not sign in the spaces left for them between Burwell and Bland's signatures.Mann Page II (1716-1780) was the owner of the Roswell Plantation in Gloucester County, Virginia but did not seem to hold any particular offices in Virginia. His son John (1743-1808), however, was a member of the first three U.S. Congresses and later became Governor of Virginia.John Page (1720-1774) was Mann II's half brother. Why Mann and John Page did not sign this document is unknown. However, Mann had recently spent a lot of money building the manor house at Roswell Plantation and was known to be in poor financial shape because of it, so perhaps he and his brother felt it best not to be a part of such a huge guarantee.There were five men who signed as witnesses to the signatures of the Guarantors:George Wythe (1726-1806) . The first American law professor, a noted classics scholar, and a Virginia judge. The first of the seven Virginia signatories of the United States Declaration of Independence, Wythe served as one of Virginia's representatives to the Continental Congress and the Philadelphia Convention. Wythe taught and was a mentor to Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, Henry Clay and other men who became American leaders. Wythe served as a judge for much of his life, first as a justice of the peace and then on the Virginia Court of Chancery. He was also a prominent law professor at the College of William & Mary and took on several notable apprentices. He remained particularly close to Jefferson, and left Jefferson his substantial book collection in his will. Wythe became increasingly troubled by slavery in his later years and emancipated his slaves on his death. After Wythe's death in 1806, his grand-nephew was tried and acquitted for Wythe's murder. Ironically, although one of Wythe's slaves had witnessed the murder of George by his grand-nephew, a slave's testimony was not admissible in court. Wythe served as Williamsburg's delegate through the sessions of 1754 and 1755 (but not in the sessions of the Assembly of 1756-1758).[10] During that gap, Wythe was reappointed clerk to the committees on Privileges and Elections and Propositions and Grievances, as well as to the Committee for Courts of Justice, and in 1759 to the Committee of Correspondence (with the colony's agent in England). In 1759, The College of William and Mary elected Wythe as its burgess to replace Peyton Randolph, and reelected Wythe in 1760 and 1761.In the summer of 1766, three events occurred which profoundly influenced Wythe, Jefferson and several other Virginians who became Founding Fathers and insisted upon the separation of powers between three branches of the new government. When John Robinson, the powerful speaker of the House of Burgesses, died, his estate was nearly insolvent (with many debts, as well as outstanding loans), and the accounts Robinson kept as Treasurer were also irregular. Instead of destroying redeemed paper currency after the French and Indian War, Robinson had lent it to his political supporters (fellow southern Virginia planters). Keeping the money in circulation helped these allies pay their own debts, but also tended to devalue the currency, as well as defied the redemption laws the legislature had passed. Robinson's executors kept the names of the politically powerful loan beneficiaries secret for decades, but did not manage to end the John Robinson estate scandal before the century itself ended. Moreover, on June 20, 1766, Colonel John Chiswell, father of Robinson's widow and business partner of Robinson, governor Fauquier and William Byrd III, killed merchant Robert Routledge (to whom he owed money) at the Cumberland Court House. Indicted for murder, Chiswell was brought under armed guard to Williamsburg for trial in the next session of the General Court (which included many men from distant counties who also served as Burgesses and was thus usually held at the same time). Before the group reached the Williamsburg jail, three judges (John Blair, Presley Thornton and Byrd) stopped them on the street and allowed Chiswell to post bail until September, since the next court session began in October.Meanwhile, the publisher of the Virginia Gazette had died. When it became clear in the spring of 1766 that the Stamp Act was not going to be enforced, two printers set up shops in Williamsburg. Both papers thrived in the ensuing controversies. On July 4, Judge Blair explained in a published letter that the judges had relied upon assurances of "three eminent Lawyers" that they could grant Chiswell bail, as well as two depositions that Routledge had run himself on Chiswell's sword, while stressing that the high bail of 6,000 pounds sterling could be recovered should Chiswell fail to show for trial. In response, 'Dikephilos' wrote that his own investigation agreed that Routledge had been drunk, but Chiswell was not, and further that neither deponent favoring Chiswell had witnessed the brawl. He predicted popular violence if the trial unfairly favored the aristocratic defendant. More published letters followed. On August 1, Wythe identified himself in print as one of the consulted lawyers and said his opinion had been limited to the legal bail issue. After Chiswell returned to Williamsburg in September, his attorney John Wayles published the two depositions given to the judges, which proved to be from Wayles himself and the Cumberland undersheriff. Judge Blair was furious when Wayles added a detail to the published copy of his own deposition (which he had gotten from the court records), apparently in order to track the undersheriff's deposition. Judge Byrd, on the other hand, joined with Wayles to demand a libel indictment against Col. Robert Bolling, Jr., claiming Bolling wrote the anonymous criticism of the bailment published on July 11. The grand jury refused, issuing a no-bill instead. However, Wythe's sterling reputation may have been tarnished. When the assembly reconvened, Robert Carter Nicholas was appointed treasurer, Peyton Randolph became speaker, and his brother John Randolph became king's attorney general, a post to which Wythe had aspired. Chiswell died unexpectedly in his Williamsburg home on October 15, before his trial could begin. Jefferson decades later in his Kentucky Resolution echoed the anonymous 'Virginia Gazette' writer of September 12, 1766, who stated, "Distrust, the parent of security, is a political virtue of unspeakable utility." Wythe continued his thriving legal practice with Jefferson's assistance. In 1767, Wythe introduced Jefferson to the bar of the General Court, and was himself appointed clerk to the House of Burgesses.Wythe attended the Second Virginia Convention as Williamsburg's representative. The meeting was held in St. John's Episcopal Church, in whose graveyard Wythe would be buried about three decades later. Patrick Henry stirred the delegates with his "Give me liberty or give me death" speech. The delegates agreed to convene militia, and the prospect of armed resistance caused Dunmore to try to remove military supplies from Williamsburg to the British naval ships offshore. Wythe enlisted in the militia immediately upon returning home. In the Gunpowder Incident of April 20, 1775, Peyton Randolph, Robert Carter Nicholas and Carter Braxton helped diffuse Henry's attempt to force return of the gunpowder by negotiating payment from Dunmore. On May 10, 1775, the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. When war seemed inevitable, Wythe was elected as Virginia's delegate to replace George Washington, who took command of the continental forces. George and Elizabeth Wythe moved to Philadelphia by September, and were inoculated against smallpox, as were fellow delegate Francis Lightfoot Lee and his lady and others. By October, Thomas Jefferson had rejoined the Congress to work with his former teacher and the other delegates, although personal tragedy forced him to leave for five months in the winter and spring. Wythe accepted many assignments relating to military, currency and other matters. He, John Dickinson and John Jay also went to New Jersey that winter and convinced that colony's assembly to maintain a united front. When petitions and other attempts failed to resolve the crisis by the following summer, all while Dunmore's raiders harassed Virginia settlements from its waterways, Wythe moved and then voted in favor of the resolution for independence that Jefferson had drafted upon his return. His fellow Virginia delegates in Philadelphia held Wythe in such esteem, that they left the first space open for Wythe when they signed the Declaration of Independence. Moreover, John Adams, who did not like many Virginians, thought so highly of Wythe that he wrote, “Thoughts on Government” concerning establishing constitutions for state governments after the war. Earlier in the session, Wythe also exchanged humorous verses with his friend delegate William Ellery of Rhode Island despite their political differences. Wythe thus signed the Declaration of Independence upon his (and his wife's) return to Philadelphia in September.The Signers' names were not made public until the following January, for all knew the declaration was an act of treason, punishable by death should their rebellion fail. Hurrying back to Virginia from Philadelphia, on June 23, 1776, Wythe began helping Virginia establish its new state government. Virginia's constitutional convention had begun months earlier (and had voted on May 15 to instruct the its federal delegates to move a declaration of independence). Wythe also continued working to establish the new nation. In 1787, Wythe became one of Virginia's delegates to the Constitutional Convention. James Mercer (1736-1793), also known as William James Mercer, was an American soldier, jurist and political figure. Mercer was born in Virginia at Malborough plantation on February 26, 1736. He was the son of John Mercer and Catherine Mason Mercer. He graduated from the College of William and Mary about 1755. After graduation, he went to serve as a captain in the French and Indian War and became the commander of Fort Loudoun in Winchester, Virginia, in 1756. Mercer subsequently entered politics and became a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1765. He later served as a Delegate for Virginia to the Continental Congress in 1779. He was appointed a Judge of the General Court in 1780 and became a Judge on the First Court of Appeals as a result. In 1789, he was appointed as a member of the reorganized Court of Appeals. He remained on the bench of that court until his death in Richmond on October 31, 1793.Peter Pelham, Jr (1721-1805) was one of Virginia's premier musicians in the late eighteenth century. Born in England, he was raised in Boston, and moved to Williamsburg by the 1750s. Raised in an artistic family, Pelham taught and played music and was the organist at Bruton Parish Church. Music could not sustain him financially, so with the aid of his well-connected associates and friends, Pelham obtained various government posts, including committee clerk of the House of Burgesses and jailer. Thomas Jefferson knew Pelham and it is likely that he saw Pelham perform while he was in Williamsburg.Francis Eppes (or Epes) VI (c. 1740-1794) was a first cousin and his wife was a half-sister to Martha Wayles, who married Thomas Jefferson and lived at Monticello. He was a lawyer.Richard Cary (1730-1789) was a Lawyer who became Clerk, Warwick County, Clerk, House of Burgesses, Committee of Trade, Warwick County Committee of Safety, 1774-1775 (chair, 1775, State delegate, 1776 and Delegate, Virginia Convention, 1776. Elected by the General Assembly to the Court of Admiralty on December 17, 1776, and became a member, ex-officio, of the Court of Appeals when it met for the first time on August 30, 1779. Service terminated by the reorganization of the courts in 1788, which took effect March 5, 1789 and was Judge, Admiralty Court, 1776-1788 (Presiding Judge, 1785-1788).Edward Ambler (1733-1768). Collector for the Port of York River. Succeeding his father and older brother John as Collector for the Port of York River, his duties required him to execute and enforce the Navigation Acts passed by Parliament for the regulation of colonial trade, reporting to Great Britain any trade violations. He ensured that all ships sailing upon the York River reported to him for inspection and were certified for exporting in a legal manner. He also had the important job of collecting taxes from tobacco exporters. His brother John died soon after his father in 1766, and Edward was given John's properties. Edward moved from Yorktown to Jamestown, replacing John in the House of Burgesses. Destined for great things in Virginia, he died suddenly in 1768 aged only 35.
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