No. XXIII. THOMAS NELSON, governor of Virginia, was a distinguished patriot of the revolution, and uniformly attached to liberty. When Virginia was threatened to be made the theatre of war, he was appointed general by the legislature, and he took the field at the head of his countrymen. He was chosen governor in the year 1781. The officers at the siege of York witnessed his merit, and his attachment to civil religious liberty. He died in February 1789, American Biography. No. XXIV. PEYTON RANDOLPH, first president of congress, was a native of Virginia, of which colo ny he was attorney-general as early as the year 1756. In that year he formed a company of a hundred gentlemen, who engaged as volunteers against the Indians. He was afterwards speaker of the house of burgesses. Being appointed one of the deputies to the first congress, in 1 1774, he was on the 5th of September elected its president. He was also chosen president of the second congress, May 10th, 1775; but on the 24th, as he was obliged to return to Virginia, Mr. Hancock was placed in the chair. Mr. Randolph afterwards took his seat again in congress. He died at Philadelphia of an apoplectic fit, October 22d, 1775, aged fiftytwo years. American Biography. |