Even the most radical did not yet whisper the terrible word Revolution, or suggest that they aspired to independence.

They simply demanded their "rights" which the arrogant and testy British Tories had shattered and were withholding from them.

At the outset rebels seldom admit that their rebellion aims at new acquisitions, but only at the recovery of the old.
Next to Massachusetts, Virginia was the most vigorous of the Colonies in protesting against British usurpation of power, which would deprive them of their liberty.

Although Virginia had no capital city like Boston, in which the chief political leaders might gather and discuss and plan, and mobs might assemble and equip with physical force the impulses of popular indignation, the Old Dominion had means, just as the Highland clans or the Arab tribes had, of keeping in touch with each other.

Patrick Henry, a young Virginia lawyer of sturdy Scotch descent, by his flaming eloquence was easily first among the spokesmen of the rights of the Colonists in Virginia.