Robert Carter Nicholas (January 28, 1715-September 8, 1780) representing James City, was a member and treasurer of the Virginia House of Burgesses. The grandson of wealthy Virginia landowner, Robert "King" Carter, he was appointed Judge of the High Court of Chancery and Court of Appeals. In 1775, he served as President Pro-tem of the Continental Convention. He was a member of the Virginia Assembly and served on the Virginia Court of Appeals.
Robert Carter Nicholas was a member of Virginia's Committee of Corresphodence, which helped unify the American colonies.
The idea of Committees of Corresspondence was proposed by Samuel Adams in Massachuestts in 1772:
<That a Committee of Correspondence be appointed, to consist of twenty-one persons, to state the rights of the colonists, and of this province in particular, as men, as Christians, and as subjects, to communicate and publish the same to the several towns in this province and to the world as the sense of this town, with the infringement and violations thereof that have been, or from time to time may be, made; also requesting of each town a free communication of their sentiments on this subject.> 1715RN001
On March 4, 1773, Virginia House of Burgesses members Dabney Carr, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Francis Lightfoot Lee, and others, met in the Apollo room at the Raleigh Tavern, named for Virginia's initial colonizer, Sir Walter Raleigh. Located on Williamsburg's busy Duke of Gloucester Street, Raleigh Tavern was a common meeting house for legislators.
They discussed Committees of Correspondence and Inquiry with other colonies to prevent one colony's currency from being counterfeited in another colony, and to coordinate opposition to British encroachments, such as transporting a band of Rhode Island smugglers back to Britain to stand trial.
Dabney Carr was chosen make the proposal in the House of Burgesses on March 12, 1773:
<Whereas, the minds of his Majesty's faithful subjects in this colony have been much disturbed, by various rumours and reports of proceedings tending to deprive them of their ancient, legal, and constitutional rights, and
Whereas, the affairs of this colony are frequently connected with those of Great Britain, as well as the neighboring colonies, which renders a communication of sentiments necessary; in order therefore to remove the uneasiness, and to quiet the minds of the people, as well as for the other good purposes above mentioned...> 1715RN002
Robert Carter Nicholas, Peyton Randolph and Dudley Digges were chosen to lead the Committee of Correspondence, which began unifying the American colonies. In the neighboring colony of Massachusetts, the British government's taxes resulted in the Boston Tea Party protest, December 16, 1773.
The British responded by passing the Intolerable (Coercive) Acts, which included:
The Boston Port Act, passed March 30, 1774, which closed the port of Boston on June 1, 1774, until the East India Company had been repaid for the tea destroyed in the Boston Tea Party;
The Massachusetts Government Act, May 20, 1774, which unilaterally altered the government of Massachusetts to bring it under control of the British government, and severely limiting town meetings;
The Administration of Justice Act, May 20, 1774, which George Washington called the “Murder Act,” which allowed the governor to move trials to another colony or Britain where few colonists could afford to leave their work and cross the ocean to testify, effectively allowing British officials to get away with murder;
The Quartering Act, June 2, 1774, allowed a governor to house soldiers in private homes;
The Quebec Act, June 22, 1774, extending the boundaries of British Quebec south to the Ohio River and west to the Mississippi, transferring western lands previously claimed by the colonies to a non-representative government and removed references to the Protestant faith in the oath of allegiance.
On May 21, 1774, news of the Boston Port Bill had reached the Virginia House of Burgesses. On May 24, 1774, Thomas Jefferson drafted a Resolution calling for a Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer for their sister colony of Massachusetts. Robert Carter Nicholas introduced Jefferson's Prayer Resolution on the floor of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and, with support of Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee and George Mason, the Resolution passed unanimously:
<This House, being deeply impressed with apprehension of the great dangers, to be derived to British America, from the hostile invasion of the City of Boston, in our Sister Colony of Massachusetts Bay, whose commerce and harbour are, on the first Day of June next, to be stopped by an Armed force, deem it highly necessary that the said first day of June be set apart, by the Members of this house, as a day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer, devoutly to implore the divine interposition, for averting the heavy Calamity which threatens destruction to our Civil Rights, and the Evils of civil War; to give us one heart and one Mind firmly to oppose, by all just and proper means, every injury to American Rights; and that the Minds of his Majesty and his Parliament, may be inspired from above with Wisdom, Moderation, and Justice, to remove from the loyal People of America all cause of danger, from a continued pursuit of Measures, pregnant with their ruin.> 1715RN003
Jefferson's Day of Fasting for Virginia was scheduled to begin at the exact time the Port of Boston was to be closed.
On May 26, the Royal appointed Governor, Lord Dunmore, interpreted the Prayer Resolution as a public protest against the King. Dunmore commanded the members of the House of Burgesses to meet him in the Council Chamber where he ordered the House of Burgesses to be dissolved and its members dispersed:
<I have in my hand a Paper published by Order of your House, conceived in such Terms as reflect highly upon his Majesty and the Parliament of Great Britain; which makes it necessary for me to dissolve you; and you are dissolved accordingly.> 1715RN004
On May 27, 1774, eighty-nine members of the dissolved House of Burgesses met in the Apollo Room of Raleigh Tavern and formed a non- importation "patriotick Assembly," announcing "that an attack, made on one of our sister colonies, to compel submission to arbitrary taxes, is an attack made on all British America."
A call was sent out to all the colonies to boycott British imports and "to meet in general congress, at such place annually as shall be thought most convenient; there to deliberate on those general measures which the united interests of America may from time to time require."
This was the foundation of the Continental Congress, and the first to sign was the former supporter of the British Crown, Speaker Peyton Randolph.
Peyton Randolph, who was the older cousin of Thomas Jefferson, was elected the first President of the Continental Congress, and was the first to be called "Father of our Country."
On May 28, 1774, though the House of Burgesses had been dissolved, Virginia's Committee of Correspondence, including Robert Carter Nicholas, Peyton Randolph and Dudley Digges, proposed a Continental Congress with the other colonies.
On May 30, 1774, twenty-five members of the former Virginia House of Burgesses met at Speaker Payton Randolph's home and called for a State convention on August 1, 1774.
On June 1, 1774, Speaker Peyton Randolph, holding the ceremonial mace, led citizens on a march from the Capitol building in Williamsburg down Duke of Gloucester Street to Bruton Parish Church to pray for Boston. Peyton then organized a Williamsburg drive to send provisions and cash relief.
On July 18, 1774, the citizens of Fairfax County, Virginia, held a meeting in the Court House of town of Alexandria, chaired by George Washington. They approved George Mason's Fairfax Resolves, identifying American rights and taking the strongest documented stand against abusive British oppression. George Washington carried the Fairfax Resolves to the First Virginia Convention which met in Williamsburg, Virginia, in August of 1774.
The Fairfax Resolves stated: "We will use every means which Heaven hath given us to prevent our becoming its slaves."
The First Virginia Convention approved an export ban and elected delegates to travel to Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress. The delegates chosen were: Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton and George Washington. They carried the Fairfax Resolves to the First Continental Congress, which met at Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia from September 6 to October 26, 1774.
The Fairfax Resolves were revised and approved as the Continental Association, October 20, 1774.
On November 9, 1774, in Williamsburg, Peyton Randolph accepted the Continental Associations agreement banning trade with England, signed by 500 merchants. Peyton Randolph was President of the Second Continental Congress in Richmond on March 23, 1775, where Patrick Henry gave his "Give me liberty or give me death" speech.
In response, Virginia's Royal Governor, Lord Dunmore, confiscated the gunpowder from Williamsburg's magazine. A mob formed at the courthouse threatening violence, but Peyton Randolph calmed them down and persuaded them to avert violence.
In May of 1775, the British General Thomas Gage arrived in America with an execution list, which included Peyton Randolph's name.
In late August of 1775, Peyton Randolph left to meet with the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. He died on October 23, 1775. Following the death of his widow, his estate was auctioned in 1783. Thomas Jefferson bought his library, which he later sold to the federal government for the Library of Congress.
On December 13,1775, after the battle of Great Bridge, Robert Carter Nicholas introduced a motion in the Virginia House of Burgesses denouncing Lord Dunmore for pronouncing martial law, calling him a monster, inimical and cruel, and a champion of "tyranny."
On December 15, 1775, Robert Carter Nicholca made a motion to grant pardons to black slaves who he had been deluded to join British forces.
Robert Carter Nicholas died September 8, 1780. His son-in-law, Edmund Randolph described him:
<By nature he was benevolent and liberal. But he appeared to many who did not thoroughly understand him, to be haughty and austere; because they could not appreciate the preference of gravity for levity, when in conversation the sacredness of religion was involved in ridicule or language forgot its chastity.> 1715RN005
Historian Henry S. Randall, in his Life of Jefferson (1858), wrote of Robert Carter Nicholas and his sons:
<No Virginia family contributed more to Mr. Jefferson's personal success than the powerful family of the Nicholases-powerful in talents, powerful in probity, powerful in their numbers and union. On every page of Mr.
Jefferson's political history the names of George, John, Wilson Cary and Philip Norborne Nicholas are written.> 1715RN006
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1715RN001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Carter Nicholas. Samuel Adams proposed the idea for a Committees of Corresspondence in Massachuestts in 1772.
1715RN002. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Carter Nicholas. Dabney Carr was chosen, March 12, 1773, to make the proposal in the House of Burgesses.
1715RN003. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Carter Nicholas, May 24, 1774, proposed in the Virginia House of Burgesses a resolution drafted by Thomas Jefferson, supported by Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee and George Mason.
1715RN004. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Carter Nicholas. Virginia Royal Governor, Lord Dunmore, May 26, 1774, dissolved the House of Burgesses in response to the Resolution of Fasting for Virginia. Robert Carter Nicholas, May 24, 1773, in a proposal for a Day of Prayer and Fasting in response to the British closing of the port at Boston. (H.B. Journal, 1773-76, 124). Douglas Southall Freeman, George Washington, 6 Vol. (NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1948-54), Vol. III, p. 350. Dumas Malone, editor, Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1934), Vol VII, p. 485.
1715RN005. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Carter Nicholas died September 8, 1780, and was described by his son-in-law, Edmund Randolph.
1715RN006. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Robert Carter Nicholas and his sons were described by historian Henry S. Randall, in Life of Jefferson, 1858.