Eighty-three residents of Brunswick County confess that they “have viewed with feelings of no common concern the late events in the county Southampton and some of them were eye witnesses to the scenes of Pillage & Robery and death and desolation." They further admit that, when “suddenly called upon to fly to the assistance of their murdered countrymen,” they found themselves “unarmed for defense, untrained to military discipline,” whereupon “they could but feel their total inability to meet any thing in the shape of an organized enemy.” The petitioners therefore suggest permission “to form themselves into a volunteer company” and to have the following rights: “to enlist men for the terms of five years”; “to make their own bylaws”; and “to be completely armed and equipped both as infantry & cavalry at the expense of the Commonwealth.”
Result: Referred to militia committee.
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Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
