At Scotchtown in March 1775, Patrick Henry faced personal grief and political crisis as he mourned the death of his wife Sarah after a long illness, cared for his six motherless children, managed his large plantation, and confronted a Virginia colony nearing revolt against British royal rule. With the Second Virginia Convention only weeks away, he wrestled with whether to urge the colonists toward war. As an elected member of the House of Burgesses, he pressed fellow delegates to hold the government accountable, sought official recognition of the colonists' unalienable rights, and repeatedly appealed to Royal Governor Lord Dunmore and the king, but his protests were ignored. Having reached the end of his tolerance, he resolved to call on Virginians to defend their lands, rights, property, and equality by force, declaring at Saint John's Church that "we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!" Although his words were not recorded and published until 1817, the speech became the rallying cry that launched a revolution and was celebrated for decades, culminating in his famed declaration, "Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"