As the old world emptied out, a new one was being born that August in Williamsburg, where the rebel burgesses, trained in self-government, reconstituted themselves as the Virginia Convention. “We never before had so full a meeting . . . as on the present occasion,” Washington exulted, as more than one hundred delegates attended.23 Within a week, the delegates had thrashed out a plan aligned with the Fairfax Resolves, thrusting Washington into the forefront of the action.
