Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

The collection is without restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Virginia Documents, 1776-1781, Accession #11313, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Processing Information

These two documents were transferred from accession #2313 to this accession within the Manuscripts Division on June 11, 1997.

Scope and Content Information

There are two separate documents of Colonial Virginia pertaining to the period of the Revolutionary War in the United States. There is a draft of a resolution, [March] 1781, in the hand of and probably drafted by John Taylor of Caroline, which was intended to be passed by the General Assembly of Virginia and sent to the Continental Congress. The document contains a strong argument that Virginia was bearing the entire cost of the war in the south, and that this was unfair because of the support that Virginia had given to the other [northern] colonies when the war was centered there. The resolution never emerged from the General Assembly committee because Benjamin Harrison returned from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to assure the assembly that aid would be forthcoming. This resolution was initially enclosed in a letter, March 26, 1781, from Edmund Pendleton to James Madison, which relates briefly the history of the document. There is also a financial account, 1776-1781, of Dr. [Thomas] Walker with the Loyal Company, filed in the Circuit Superior Court of Augusta, Virginia. The account shows payments to up to thirty-three members of the Loyal Company for their dividends of the Lead Mine money. Persons mentioned as receiving payments include: Thomas Nelson, Jr.; Edmund Pendleton; Nicholas Lewis; Thomas Meriweather; Peter Jefferson; John Fry; James Maury; Samuel Lewis; John Baylor; James Madison; and, others.