(1726–June 8, 1806), was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He was a member of the Continental Congress, a member of the House of Burgesses and the Mayor of Williamsburg. He served as the attorney general of the Virginia Colony and established the first law professorship in the United States at the College of William and Mary.663
In February of 1776, George Wythe, Roger Sherman and John Adams, comprised a committee responsible for establishing guidelines for an embassy bound for Canada. Their instructions stated:
You are further to declare that we hold sacred the rights of conscience, and may promise to the whole people, solemnly in our name, the free and undisturbed exercise of their religion. And. … that all civil rights and the right to hold office were to be extended to persons of any Christian denomination.664