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Fauquier dissolved the Burgesses on June 1, 1765, hoping new elections would purge the radicals, but this proved not to be the case, as conservative leaders were instead voted out. The governor did not call the Burgesses into session until November 1766, by which time the Stamp Act had been repealed by Parliament, preventing Virginia from sending delegates to the [[Stamp Act Congress]] in New York. Henry's role in the active resistance that took place in Virginia against the Stamp Act is uncertain. Although the lack of a legislative session sidelined Henry during the crisis, it also undermined the established leaders of the chamber, who remained scattered through the colony with little opportunity to confer, as the public rage for change grew hotter.{{sfn|Kukla|pp=80–82}}
When the Burgesses eventually convened, Henry sometimes opposed the colonial leaders, but united with them against British policies. In the late 1760s and early 1770s, Henry spent more time concentrating on his personal affairs,<ref name = "a" /> though he advanced in powerstanding within the Burgesses, serving on powerful committees.{{sfn|Campbell|p=72}} The Henry family moved to a new house on his Louisa County property, probably in late 1765, and lived there until 1769, when he returned to Hanover County. His law practice remained strong until the courts under royal authority closed in 1774. Jefferson later complained that Henry was lazy and ignorant in the practice of the law, with his sole talent practice before juries, and accused Henry of charging criminal defendants high fees to get them acquitted. Norine Dickson Campbell, in her biography of Henry, found Jefferson's comments unfounded; that Henry's rates were moderate for the time, and citing earlier historians as to Henry's competence.{{sfn|Campbell|pp=62–65}} Jefferson's comments came years after the two, once friends, quarreled.{{sfn|Kidd|pp=71–72}} In 1769, Henry was admitted to practice before the [[General Court of Virginia]] in Williamsburg, a venue more prestigious than the county courts.{{sfn|Kidd|p=71}}{{sfn|Campbell|p=xvii}}
Henry invested some of his earnings in western lands, in what is now the western part of Virginia, as well as in West Virginia and Kentucky,. He claimingclaimed ownership though many of them were controlled by the Native Americans, and sought to get the colonial (and, later, state) government to recognize his claims. This was common among Virginia's leading citizens, such as [[George Washington]]. Henry foresaw the potential of the [[Ohio Valley]] and was involved in schemes to found settlements. Income from land deals in 1771 enabled him to buy [[Scotchtown (plantation)|Scotchtown]], a large plantation in Hanover County, which he purchased from John Payne, the father of [[Dolley Madison]], who lived there for a brief time as a child. Scotchtown, with 16 rooms, was one of the largest mansions in Virginia.{{sfn|Kidd|pp=72–73}}
Owning estates such as Henry's meant owning slaves; Henry was a slaveholder from the time of his marriage at age 18, when he was given land and slaves.{{sfn|Kidd|p=15}} Despite this, Henry believed that slavery was wrong, and hoped for its abolition, but had no plan for doing so, nor for the multiracial society that would result, for he did not believe colonization schemes were realistic, "to re-export them now is now impracticable, and sorry I am for it."{{sfn|Kukla|pp=100–102}} He wrote in 1773, "I am the master of slaves of my own purchase. I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living here without them. I will not, I cannot justify it."{{sfn|Kukla|p=124}} But the number of slaves he owned increased over time, and as a result of his second marriage in 1777, and at his death in 1799, he owned 67 slaves.{{sfn|Kidd|pp=15–16}} Henry and others sought to end their importation to Virginia, and succeeded in 1778. They assumed that in so doing, they fought slavery, but in the generation after independence, slave births greatly exceeded deaths, and Virginia became a source of slaves sold south in the [[coastwise slave trade]].{{sfn|Kukla|p=125}}
===Renewed involvement and First Continental Congress (1773–1775)===
In 1773, Henry came into conflict with the royal governor, [[John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore]]. The governor had sent several British soldiers to [[Pittsylvania County, Virginia|Pittsylvania County]] to aid in apprehending a gang of counterfeiters. Once takencaptured, they were immediately taken to Williamsburg for trial before the General Court, ignoring precedent that judicial proceedings should begin in the county where the offense took place, or where the suspect was captured. This was a sensitive matter especially because of the recent [[Gaspee affair|''Gaspee'' affair]] in Rhode Island, in which the British sought to capture and transport overseas for trial those who had burned a British ship. The Burgesses sought to rebuke Dunmore for his actions, and Henry was part of a committee of eight members, that drafted a resolution thanking the governor for the capture of the gang, but affirming that using the "usual mode" of criminal procedure protected both the guilty and the innocent.{{sfn|Kukla|pp=152–155}} They also penned a plan, adopted by the Burgesses, for [[Committees of correspondence|a committee of correspondence]] to communicate with leaders in other colonies, to inform and coordinate with each other. The members included Henry.{{sfn|Mayer|p=175}}
Although Henry had by this time come to believe that conflict with Great Britain, and independence, was inevitable,{{sfn|Kukla|p=138}} he had no strategy for advancing this. The Burgesses were sitting when in 1774, word came that Parliament had voted to [[Boston Port Act|close the port of Boston]] in retaliation for the [[Boston Tea Party]], and several burgesses, including Henry, convened at the [[Raleigh Tavern]]. According to [[George Mason]], a former burgess from [[Fairfax County, Virginia|Fairfax County]], who joined the committee in the work, Henry took the lead. Mason and Henry would form a close political relationship that would last until Mason's death in 1792. The resolution that Henry's committee produced set June 1, 1774, the date upon which the Port of Boston was to be closed, as a day of fasting and prayer. It passed the Burgesses, but Dunmore dissolved the body. Undeterred, the former legislators met at the Raleigh Tavern, and reconstituted themselves as [[First Virginia Convention|a convention]], to meet again in August, after there was time for county meetings to show local sentiment. They also called for a boycott of tea and other products.{{sfn|Kukla|pp=139–141}}
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