In July, 1775, Virginia began to raise and officer an army of more than one thousand men. By fall Lord Dunmore, the Provincial Governor of Virginia, who in June had retreated to His Majesty’s ship “Fowey” at Yorktown, had collected a small flotilla, and had begun a series of desultory attacks upon the river banks of Virginia. On October 25 he was repulsed at Hampton; on December 9 he was beaten by the Virginia patriots at Great Ridge; and on January 1 he burned Norfolk. His movements excited so much alarm that the leading patriot families on the James, York, Rappahannock, and Potomac rivers retreated inland for safety. In order to prevent the depredations of Lord Dunmore, and to provide effectually for the general defence of the state, the Virginia Provincial Convention in December authorized the Committee of Safety of the state “to provide from time to time such and so many armed vessels as they may judge necessary for the protection of the several rivers in this colony, in the best manner the circumstances of the country will admit.” The Committee of Safety was further directed to raise a sufficient number of officers, sailors, and marines; and settle their pay, which was not to exceed certain specified rates. The maximum wage of “the chief commander of the whole as commodore” was fixed at fifteen shillings a day.[506] Between December, 1775, and July, 1776, the Committee of Safety procured and established a small navy. On April 1 it fixed the naval pay, generally at the maximum rates permitted. Captains in the navy were to receive a daily wage of 8s.; captains of marines, 6s.; midshipmen, 3s.; marines, 1s., 6d. The Committee resolved that two years ought to be a maximum period of service. It appointed a number of the most prominent officers in the Virginia navy, among whom were Captains James Barron, Richard Barron, Richard Taylor, Thomas Lilly, and Edward Travis. It fixed the relative rank between army and navy officers. It purchased the boats “Liberty” and “Patriot,” the brigs “Liberty” and “Adventure,” and the schooner “Adventure.” It contracted for the construction of a number of galleys on the different rivers of the state.[507] George Mason and John Dalton were appointed a committee to build two row-galleys, and buy three cutters for the defence of the Potomac. In April, 1776, Mason wrote that the galleys were well under way, and that three small vessels had been purchased, of which the largest was a fine stout craft of about 110 tons burden, mounting fourteen 8’s and 4’s, carrying ninety-six men, and named the “American Congress.” A company of marines for this vessel, he said, were being exercised in the use of the great guns.[508] The Committee of Safety chose a “Lieutenant of Marines in the Potomac river Department.”