Virginia held five Revolutionary Conventions between August 1774
and July 1776. The conventions selected and instructed the
Virginia delegates to Congress, organized military preparation,
arranged economic embargoes of British goods, and formed the
Virginia Committee of Safety that between August 1775 and July
1776 governed Virginia in the absence of the royal governor. The
last of the Revolutionary Conventions met in the Capitol in
Williamsburg from May 6 through July 5, 1776. On the morning of
May 6, a few members of the House of Burgesses met there for the
last time and let that body die. The members of the fifth
Convention then began their meetings in the Capitol. Many of the
delegates brought instructions from their localities to declare
Virginia independent of Great Britain. As their first order of
business, they elected Edmund Pendleton president of the
convention. On May 14, the debate on independence began. There
was no question that the ties between Virginia and Great Britain
would be dissolved (Rob