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148 In order not to break the connection we have anticipated the course of events, and return now to the early part of the year 1775.

The first patriotic meeting of the people of Augusta county, of which we have any account, was held in Staunton, February 22, 1775. The proceedings were reported as follows:

"After due notice given to the freeholders of the county of Augusta to meet in Staunton, for the purpose of electing delegates to represent them in Colony Convention at the town of Richmond, on the 20th of March, 1775, the freeholders of said county thought proper to refer the choice of their delegates to the judgment of the committee, who, thus authorized by the general voice of the people, met at the courthouse on the 22d of February, and unanimously chose Mr. Thomas Lewis and Captain Samuel McDowell to represent them in the ensuing Convention.

"Instructions were then ordered to be drawn up by the Rev. Alexander Balmaine, Mr. Sampson Mathews, Captain Alexander McClanahan, Mr. Michael Bowyer, Mr. William Lewis, and Captain George Mathews, or any three of them, and delivered to the delegates thus chosen, which are as follows: 'To Mr. Thomas Lewis and Captain Samuel McDowell.—The committee of Augusta county, pursuant to the trust reposed in them by the freeholders of the same, have chosen you to represent them in Colony Convention, proposed to be held in Richmond on the 20th of March instant. They desire that you may consider the people of Augusta county as impressed with just sentiments of loyalty and allegiance to his Majesty King George, whose title to the imperial crown of Great Britain rests on no other foundation than the liberty, and whose glory is inseparable from the happiness, of all his subjects. We have also respect for the parent State, which respect is founded on religion, on law, and on the genuine principles of the constitution. On these principles do we earnestly desire to see harmony and a good understanding restored between Great Britain and America.

"'Many of us and our forefathers left our native land and explored this once-savage wilderness to enjoy the free exercise of the rights of conscience and of human nature. These rights we are fully resolved, with our lives and fortunes, inviolably to preserve; nor will we surrender such inestimable blessings, the purchase of toil and danger, to any Ministry, to any Parliament, or