1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Randolph, Peyton

RANDOLPH, PEYTON (1721–1775), American politician, was born at Tazewell Hall, Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1721, a son of Sir John Randolph (1693–1737), the king’s attorney for Virginia.^[1] He graduated at the College of William and Mary, studied law at the Inner Temple, London, and in 1748 was appointed the king’s attorney for Virginia. Randolph wrote the address of remonstrance to the king in behalf of the Burgesses against the suggested stamp duties in 1764. His policy was conservative and moderate, and in May 1765 he opposed Patrick Henry’s radical “Stamp Act Resolutions.” In 1766 he resigned as king’s attorney and was succeeded by his brother John (1727–1784). In 1769 he acted as moderator of the privately convened assembly which entered into the non importation agreement, and in May 1773 he became chairman of the first Virginia inter colonial committee of correspondence. He presided over the provincial convention of August 1774, and was a member of the First Continental Congress, of which he was president from the 5th of September to the 22nd of October 1774. He was re-elected to Congress in March 1775, and on the 10th of May was again chosen to preside, but on the 24th he left to attend a meeting at Williamsburg of the Virginia Burgesses, He then returned to Congress, of which John Hancock had meanwhile been made president. Randolph died of apoplexy in Philadelphia on the 22nd of October 1775. He was provincial grand-master of the Masons of Virginia, and was an intimate friend of Washington.

1. In 1754 the Burgesses sent him to London to argue against the governor’s demand for a fee of one pistole on every land patent; his plea was successful, but the governor superseded him with George Wythe, who resigned in Randolph’s favour upon his return from England. The Burgesses voted Randolph £2500 with the grant of £20,000 to Governor Dinwiddie for Indian warfare; the governor would not approve this appropriation, however, until Randolph apologized for leaving his office without the governor’s permission.