Appendix^ N 4 



in London, and of whom the former was a commissioner of 

 the excise, he had been appointed Lord Lieutenant and 

 Gustos Rotulorum of the county of Fairfax, collector of the 

 customs of South Potomac, and one of his majesty's 

 council; of which, in process of time, he became president, 

 and continued in that honourable station many years. He 

 was succeeded in his estate and employments by his eldest 

 son, George William Fairfax. George William, at an early 

 age, had been sent to England for education, and had been 

 brought up in the same principles which had been professed 

 by Lord Fairfax, and the rest of the family. At his return to 

 Virginia, he married Sarah, daughter of Colonel Gary, of 

 Hampton, upon James river, of the family of Hunsdon; 

 and usually resided at his beautiful place at Belvoir, ex- 

 cept during the sessions of the assembly and of the general 

 courts, when his duty, as one of his majesty's council, 

 obliged him to be at Williamsburg. 



In the year 1773, some estates in Yorkshire having de- 

 volved to him by the death of Henry, his father's elder 

 brother, he found it necessary to go to England to take 

 possession of them. So critical was his arrival, that he 

 passed in the river Thames the ill-omened tea, which 

 eventually occasioned the separation of the American colo- 

 nies from the mother-country. During the ten years contest, 

 the consequences of which Mr. Fairfax early foresaw and 

 lamented, his estates in Virginia were sequestered, and he 

 received no remittances from his extensive property in that 

 quarter of the world. This induced him to remove out of 

 Yorkshire, from a house which he had recently furnished, 

 to lay down his carriages, and to retire to Bath, where he 

 lived in a private but genteel manner; and confined his ex- 



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