But the position of Virginia with respect to slavery and the vetoes of
George III and the slave trade was not left to be determined by
unofficial utterances though coming from one of her greatest sons. As
early as 1774 her people registered their sentiments in the most
varied and emphatic forms. Mass meetings in many of the counties
adopted resolutions, the purport and tenor of which may be gathered
from those of Fairfax County,—"We take the opportunity of declaring
our most earnest wishes to see an entire stop forever put to such a
wicked, cruel and unnatural trade."[14]