Hanover County (Virginia) Committee

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At a meeting appointed and held for Hanover County, at the Court-House, on Tuesday, the 9th of May, 1775: Present: John Syme, Samuel Overton, William Cranch, Meriwether Skelton, Richard Morris, Benjamin Anderson, John Pendleton, John Robinson, Nelson Berkeley, and George Dabney, Junior.

Agreeable to a Resolution of the Committee held at Newcastle, the 2d instant, setting forth that they being fully informed of the violent hostilities committed by the King' s Troops in America, and of the danger arising to the Colony by the loss of the publick Powder, and of the conduct of the Governour, which threatens altogether calamities of the greatest magnitude and most fearful consequences to this Colony; and therefore recommending reprisals to be made upon the King' s property, sufficient to replace the Gunpowder taken out of the Magazine: It appears to this Committee that the Volunteers who marched from Newcastle to obtain satisfaction for the Gunpowder, by reprisal or otherwise, proceeded on that business as follows, to wit:

That an Officer, with sixteen men, was detached to seize the King' s Receiver-General, with orders to detain him; and this, it was supposed, might be done without impeding the progress of the main body. The said Receiver-General not being apprehended, owing to his absence from home, the said detachment, according to orders, proceeded to join the main body on its march to Williamsburgh, and the junction happened on the 3d instant, at Doncastle' s Ordinary, about sunset. A little after sunrise next morning, the Commanding Officer being assured that proper satisfaction, in money, should be instantly made, the Volunteers halted, and the proposal being considered by them, was judged satisfactory as to that point; and the following Receipt was given, to wit:

"Doncastle' s Ordinary, New-Kent, May 4, 1775.

"Received from the Honourable Richard Corbin, Esq˙, His Majesty' s Receiver-General, £330, as a compensation for the Gunpowder lately taken out of the publick Magazine by the Governour' s order; which money I promise to convey to the Virginia Delegates at the General Congress, to be under their direction laid out in Gunpowder for the Colony' s use, and to be stored as they shall direct, until the next Colony Convention, or General Assembly, unless it shall be necessary, in the mean time, to use the same in defence of this Colony. It is agreed, that in case the next Convention shall determine that any part of the said money ought to be returned to His Majesty' s Receiver-General, that the same shall be done accordingly.

"PATRICK HENRY, JUNIOR."