o seizure and confiscation as enemy ships. By proclaiming the
colonists to be enemies in rebellion, parliament and the king, in effect,
declared war on the colonies.

To assure itself of manpower, Britain negotiated treaties with
Hesse-Cassel and Brunswick for 13,000 Hessians to fight with the British
armies in America. From the beginning it was obvious many Englishmen had
no stomach for fighting their fellow Englishmen overseas. Conversely it
was obvious the colonial Englishmen were prepared to fight in defense of
their rights and liberties as Englishmen. After the passage of the
Prohibitory Act and the hiring of the Hessian mercenaries no doubt
remained that this was to be a full war in which the colonies would, in
the king's words, "either submit or triumph." The king felt that he would
violate his coronation oath if he failed to defend the supremacy of
parliament. He felt that the act of settlement establishing the
protestant succession in the House of Hanover to the exclusion of the
Catholic Stuarts made parliament supreme and that he was bound by his
coronation oath to uphold this supremacy and that he could not honorably
agree to the colonists' position. A colonial declaration was inevitable.

Independence

On July 17, 1775, delegates to the Virginia Convention reassembled in
Richmond. Those who were reluctant in March now knew that forceful
measures must be taken to defend Virginia through creating an interim
government. Dunmore could not manage the colony from shipboard, and the
royal council was defunct without him. From Philadelphia came word of the
formation of the Continental Army with Washington as its commander; from
Boston the news was of the staggering casualties inflicted on the British
redcoats by the New Englanders before they abandoned Breed's Hill in the
battle known as Bunker Hill; from New York rumors spread of the impending
invasion by the British navy; and for good news there were the victories
of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold at Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point.

The July Convention elected an 11-man Committee of Safety to govern the
colony. This committee, which had greater powers than any other executive
body in the history of Virginia, could set its own meeting times, appoint
all military officers, distribute arms and munitions, call up the militia
and independent minute-men companies, direct military strategy, commit
men to the defense of other colonies and to assure the colony of it