(January 28, 1715–September 8, 1780) was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, representing James City. He was appointed Judge of the High Court of Chancery and Court of Appeals. He was a member of the Committees of Correspondence, attended all major conventions, and in 1775, served as President Pro-tem of the Continental Convention.
When the English tea was dumped into the Boston harbor to protest taxes, the British navy retaliated by blockading the port. The colonies surrounding Massachusetts responded with sympathy and action. On May 24, 1773, Robert Carter Nicholas, Treasurer of the House of Burgesses in Virginia, proposed a Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer, that was approved with virtually no comment:
This House, being deeply impressed with apprehension of the great dangers to be derived to British America from the hostile invasion of the city of Boston in our Sister Colony of Massachusetts Bay, whose commerce and harbor are, on the first day of June next, to be stopped by an armed force, deem it highly necessary that the said first day of June be set apart, by the members of this House, as a Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer, devoutly to implore the Divine interposition, for averting the heavy calamity which threatens destruction to our civil rights and the evils of civil war;
to give us one heart and mind firmly opposed, by all just and proper means, every injury to American rights;
and that the minds of His Majesty and his Parliament, may be inspired from above with wisdom, moderation and justice, to remove from the loyal people of America all cause of danger from a continued pursuit of measures pregnant with their ruin.559