Thomas Ludwell Lee (1730–1778), of Stafford County, one of the sons of Thomas and Hannah Ludwell Lee of Stratford Hall, lived at Belleview plantation on the south side of Potomac Creek, near the Stafford County court house (FITHIAN description begins Hunter Dickinson Farish, ed. Journal & Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 1773–1774: A Plantation Tutor of the Old Dominion. Williamsburg, Va., 1943. description ends , 23). Educated in London at the Inns of Court, he was a burgess 1758–65 and was said to be “the most popular man in Virginia, and the delight of the eyes of every Virginian” (John Adams to Richard Bland Lee, 11 Aug. 1819, ADAMS [2] description begins Charles Francis Adams, ed. The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes, and Illustrations. 10 vols. 1850–56. Reprint. New York, 1971. description ends , 10:382). But he had no desire to play a prominent role in public life, being by nature a man of “extreme indolence, especially in affairs th[a]t require some little trouble” (William Lee to Anthony Stewart, 1769, LEE [1] description begins Cazenove Gardner Lee, Jr. Lee Chronicle: Studies of the Early Generations of the Lees of Virginia. Edited by Dorothy Mills Parker. New York, 1957. description ends , 219–20).