Captain Foy on board for Boston.

Dunmore issued a proclamation commanding all subjects on their
allegiance, to repair to his standard.

FOOTNOTES:

[622:A] Williamsburg invited the assistance of an additional volunteer
force to guard the town.

CHAPTER LXXXIV.

1775.

Dunmore at Portsmouth--Convention--Committee of Safety--
Carrington, Read, Cabell--Henry, Colonel and Commander-in-chief
--George Mason--Miscellaneous Affairs--Death of Peyton Randolph
--The Randolphs of Virginia.

DUNMORE'S domestics now abandoned the palace and removed to Porto Bello,
his country-seat, about six miles below Williamsburg. The fugitive
governor took up his station at Portsmouth.

On Monday, July the 17th, 1775, the convention met at Richmond. Measures
were taken for raising two regiments of regular troops for one year, and
two companies for the protection of the western frontier, and to divide
the colony into sixteen districts, and to exercise the militia as
minute-men, so as to be ready for service at a moment's warning. At the
instance of Richard Bland an inquiry was made into certain charges
reflecting on his patriotism; and his innocence was triumphantly
vindicated. Although he had resisted extreme measures, yet when the
crisis came, and the rupture took place, he was behind none in patriotic
ardor and devotion to the common cause. A minister was implicated in
propagating the charges against him.

A committee of safety was organized to take charge of the executive
duties of the colony; it consisted of eleven gentlemen: Edmund
Pendleton, George Mason, John Page, Richard Bland, Thomas Ludwell Lee,
Paul Carrington, Dudley Digges, William Cabell, Carter Braxton, James
Mercer, and John Tabb.

Paul Carrington, the ancestor of those bearing that name in Virginia,
and his wife, of the Heningham family, emigrated from Ireland to
Barbadoes. He died early in the eighteenth century, and left a widow and
numerous children. The youngest, George, about the year 1727, came to
Virginia with the family of Joseph Mayo, a Barbadoes merchant, who
settled at Powhatan, the former seat of the chief of that name, and
young Carrington lived with him in the capacity of storekeeper. About
1732 he married Anne, daughter of William Mayo, of Goochland, brother of
Joseph, and went to reside on Willis's Creek, in what is now Cumberland
County. Paul Carrington, eldest child of this marriage, married, in
1755, Margaret, daugh