ame to be accepted as
"self-evident truths" when later generations applied these truths to the
rights of man, regardless of race, creed, color, religion, or national
origin. But that was a long way off. June-July 1776 was the beginning of
a great experiment, not the finished product.

[37] Bernard Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the American
Revolution, Harvard University Press, 1962, chapter 4.

The British-Americans: The Virginia Loyalists

Jefferson was correct in stating that Virginians moved forward to war
with greater unity and with fewer examples of Torism than any other
colony. Robert Calhoon, historian of loyalism, notes Virginia Loyalists
consisted "of a handful of Anglican clergymen, the members of a moribund
Royal Council, and several hundred Scottish merchants, and were ... not a
very formidable coalition." This confirms the much older view of Isaac
Harrell who characterized Virginia loyalists as small in number, not more
than a few thousand, whose activities after the departure of Governor
Dunmore were limited. Only in the Norfolk area, the Hobbs Hole region of
Middlesex County, in Accomac County on the Eastern Shore, and in the
isolated frontier area along the Monongahela River, claimed jointly by
Pennsylvania and Virginia, were there enough loyalists to even suggest a
majority of the population. "Of the 2,500 claims filed with British
government for loyalist property lost during the Revolution, only 140
were from Virginia." Most of these 140 claims were made by British
natives living in Virginia at the outbreak of the war. Only 13 were
Virginians.

Except for the Dunmore raids in 1775-1776 and an abortive plot in 1776 by
Dr. John Connolly in the Fort Pitt region there were no loyalist military
operations in Virginia. Several hundred loyalists joined the royal army,
a small number in comparison to most colonies. Most loyalists went to
London or Glasgow. Except for William Byrd III and Attorney-General John
Randolph, most native Virginia loyalists, including Richard Corbin, John
Grymes, and Ralph Wormeley stayed quietly on their plantations.[38]
Virginia's only nobleman, aging recluse, Thomas, Sixth Lord Fairfax,
owner of the Northern Neck, 9,000 square miles of land, remained
untouched at his hunting lodge in Frederick County.

[38] Robert M. Calhoon. The Loyalists in Revolutionary America,
1760-1781, (Harcourt, Brace: New York, 1973), 458; Isaac Harrell,
Loyalism in Vi