1. Dawson was a resident of Spotsylvania County. In November 1787 citizens of Albemarle County petitioned the legislature to pass an act “for an emission of paper money, or for making property, by valuation, a tender in payment of debts.” The House of Delegates rejected the petition in a series of resolutions, one of which declared “that the making paper currency, or any thing but gold and silver coin, a tender in discharge of debts contracted in money, is contrary to every principle of sound policy, as well as justice” (JHDV description begins Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia; Begun and Held at the Capitol, in the City of Williamsburg. Beginning in 1780, the portion after the semicolon reads, Begun and Held in the Town of Richmond, In the County of Henrico. The journal for each session has its own title page and is individually paginated. The edition used is the one in which the journals for 1777–1790 are brought together in three volumes, with each journal published in Richmond in either 1827 or 1828 and often called the “Thomas W. White reprint.” description ends , Oct. 1787, pp. 28, 29).

2. “The springs” were located at the town of Bath, in what was then Berkeley County. The town is now called Berkeley Springs and falls within the limits of Morgan County, West Virginia.

3. PJM description begins William T. Hutchinson et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison (10 vols. to date; Chicago, 1962——). description ends , II, 68 n. 1. See also J. R. Graham, Sketches, Biographical and Genealogical, of the Magill Family of Winchester, Virginia (Winchester, 1908), pp. 12–17.