The threat posed by this fleet may have played a role in minimizing Whig activity in the town. He then assembled a small British fleet at Norfolk, a port town whose merchants had significant Loyalist (Tory) tendencies. ![]() Although the incident was resolved without violence, Dunmore, fearing for his personal safety, left Williamsburg in June 1775 and placed his family on board a Royal Navy ship. Under orders from John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, British troops removed gunpowder from the colonial storehouse in Williamsburg, alarming the Whigs that dominated the colonial legislature. Rebellious Whigs in control of the provincial assembly had begun recruiting troops by March 1775, leading to a struggle for control of the colony's military supplies. Tensions in the British Colony of Virginia were raised in April 1775 at roughly the same time that the hostilities of the American Revolutionary War broke out in the Province of Massachusetts Bay with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. This increased opposition to his activities, and he was eventually forced to leave Virginia. Dunmore was investigating rumors of Patriot troop arrivals from North Carolina that turned out to be false he instead moved against the Princess Anne militia, defeating their attempt at an ambush and routing them.ĭunmore followed up the victory with a reading of his proclamation declaring martial law and promising freedom to slaves belonging to Patriot owners if they served in the British military. ![]() ![]() Militia companies from Princess Anne County in the Province of Virginia assembled at Kemp's Landing to counter British troops under the command of Virginia's last colonial governor, John Murray, Lord Dunmore, that had landed at nearby Great Bridge. The Battle of Kemp's Landing, also known as the Skirmish of Kempsville, was a skirmish in the American Revolutionary War that occurred on November 15, 1775.
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