command to drive Dunmore from Gosport. Dunmore removed himself
to Norfolk. In December 1775 Woodford's men, supported by some North
Carolinians, faced Dunmore's army of redcoats, loyalists, and former
slaves at Great Bridge, the long land causeway and bridge through the
swampland and over the Elizabeth River near Norfolk. There on December 9
Woodford's men repulsed a frontal attack by Dunmore's regulars and drove
them from Great Bridge. After losing the Battle of Great Bridge, Dunmore
knew he could not defend Norfolk. He abandoned the town to Woodford on
December 14, but returned with his ships on January 1, 1776 to shell and
burn the port. Woodford's men then completed the destruction of the one
center of Torism in the colony by burning the city to the ground.

Dunmore resumed harassing colonial trade for several more months.
However, his loyalist supporters dwindled away and he received no
reenforcements of British regulars. Most of his black troops had been
abandoned to the colonists after Great Bridge. Those who remained with
him were later sent into slavery in the West Indies. Finally, on July
8-9, 1776, Colonel Andrew Lewis' land-based artillery badly damaged
Dunmore's fleet at the Battle of Gwynn's Island, in Gloucester County,
now Mathews County. With this Dunmore and his ships left Virginia, the
Governor going to New York where he took an army command under General
Howe. Not until 1779 did a British fleet return in force to the
Chesapeake.

On May 6, 1776, the Virginia Convention had reconvened, this time in
Williamsburg, for there was no need to fear Dunmore. Nor was there any
doubt about the overwhelming Virginian sentiment for independence. The
winter's war, the king's stubbornness, Parliament's Prohibitory Act,
Dunmore's martial law, and Thomas Paine's stirring rhetoric in his
incomparable Common Sense had all swung public opinion toward
independence. Paine's Common Sense touched Virginians through the
printed word in much the same manner as Henry's fiery oratory reached
their hearts.

Immediately upon sitting, the Convention received three resolutions for
independence. Leading the resolutionists was Edmund Pendleton, President
of the Convention, formerly among the more cautious of patriots. For once
Henry wavered slightly and let others take the lead.

On May 15 the convention instructed Richard Henry Lee as a delegate to
the Continental Congress to introduce a resolution for independence
stating: