attention to their debts, and resisted credit extensions until
their tobacco was harvested and cured. They also took violent exception
to crown and parliamentary solutions to imperial problems. The growing
personal indebtedness caused Virginians to rethink their economic ties
to the empire, it did not cause them to seek independence in order to
avoid paying their bills.[2]

[2] For differing views of the debt situation see Lawrence H.
Gipson, The Coming of the Revolution (Harper and Row: New
York, 1954), 40-54, and Emory G. Evans, "Planter Indebtedness and
the Coming of the Revolution in Virginia," William and Mary
Quarterly, 3rd. series, XIX (1962), 511-33. Evans holds an
anti-debt position.

Political leadership changed during the 18th Century from the council
to the House of Burgesses and from a few great families to a
broad-based gentry. In the early 18th Century several great families
directed Virginia politics. Mostly members of the Governor's Council,
they not only won power and wealth for themselves, they challenged the
power of the royal governors and managed to defeat or neutralize
several strong-willed governors, including Governor Francis Nicholson
(1698-1705) and Governor Alexander Spotswood. They even converted
Spotswood into a Virginia planter. The council reached its height of
power in the 1720's and then lost its influence as the great planters
passed on. Robert "King" Carter died in 1732, Commissary James Blair in
1743, William Byrd II in 1744, Thomas Lee in 1750, and Lewis Burwell in
1751. Only Thomas Lee successfully passed on his political position to
his heir, Richard Henry Lee. Unlike his father, Lee achieved his power
in the House of Burgesses.

The day of the House of Burgesses had come. Its leader was John
Robinson, of King and Queen County, whose father and uncle had been
councilors. From the day in 1738 when he became Speaker of the House
and Treasurer of Virginia until his death in 1766, Robinson quietly and
efficiently built the power and influence of the burgesses. He took as
his watchword the promise of his predecessor as speaker, Sir John
Randolph, to the burgesses:

The Honour of the House of Burgesses hath of late been raised
higher than can be observed in former Times; and I am persuaded you
will not suffer it to be lessened under your Management.

I will be watchful of your Privileges, without which we should be
no more th