For years Charles followed his mother’s teachings and was an active member of the Society of Friends; for some time he was “Clerk of the monthly meetings.” Later, however, the exigencies of the times caused him to forego some of his scruples and accept public office. In 1767 he became “unsatisfactory” to the peace-loving Quakers and he was “disowned for taking solemn oaths, contrary to the order and discipline of Friends.” It was in this year, 1767, that he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, where he held a seat till the colony became an independent State. He was prominent in the earliest organization of Bedford County, formed from Lunenburg County in 1753 (Henry Howe: “Historical Collections of Virginia” (1845), p. 188; Hening’s Statutes at Large, VI, 381), and was a member of the Virginia convention of 1776, which, by sending instructions to the delegates from Virginia in the Continental Congress, exercised a decisive influence on the movement for independence. He had been made a justice of the peace under a commission from Governor Dunmore in 1774, and when the county court was reorganized, according to the ordinance of the Convention, passed on the 3d of July, 1776, he retained the position. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War his Quaker principles seemed still to influence his actions to an extent sufficient to keep him out of active military service. His loyalty was well known, however. Mr. Page says: “He did not enlist in the army, partly because of his Quaker principles, but chiefly because his presence was imperatively necessary at home. He had to rouse the spirit of his constituents to support the action he had advocated in the convention. He had to raise and equip troops for the army. He had, as it were, to mobilize the forces of his country, and attend to all the duties of a commissary department. In addition, he had to make some provision in the event of an attack from hostile Indians.” In 1778 the court of Bedford recommended him to the Governor for the office of Colonel of Militia in that county. He accepted the commission and organized a regiment, but the call to the front did not come till two years later when the war was shifted to the south and Lord Cornwallis was sent to co-operate with General Philips and Benedict Arnold in the invasion of Virginia.