Ed Helms

All right.

Back to Dunmore, because, of course, he wouldn't be left out of the colonial chaos.

He got a mandate very similar to General Gages up in Massachusetts to suppress the unrest down in Virginia.

And being a loyal redcoat, as he was, he dove right in.

In April 1775, he grabbed the gunpowder from the public magazine in Williamsburg and sent it on a ship offshore, you know, just to keep it safe from those pesky colonists.

Of course, patriot forces quickly learned of this and mobilized in outrage because, shocker, people get a little grumpy when you move their explosives without asking.

People don't like that.

They don't like it.

Dunmore, ever the spin doctor, claimed he was acting in the colonists' best interest.

He said he was simply preventing a slave revolt.

None of this went over very well.

So news spread quickly and local militia began mobilizing.

Faced with rising tensions and threats to the governor's palace, as you mentioned there in Williamsburg, Dunmore withdrew his family and by June took refuge aboard the HMS Fowey in the York River.

From there, he attempted to govern Virginia from the relative safety of a warship, which is rarely a sign that things are going smoothly.

A leader in exile doesn't govern very well.

We have an artistic rendering of Lord Dunmore's flight to the warship Fowey.

And there it is.

There it is.

Who's got his fist up?

Is that Dunmore with his fist up?