Richard Bland was an American statesman, farmer, member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, delegate to the Continental Congress,[1] a cousin of Thomas Jefferson,[2] and was acknowledged as Virginia's expert on the Rights of Englishmen.[3]
Bland is well known for his pamphlet An Inquiry Into the Rights of the British Colonies. Jefferson said of his pamphlet: "There was more sound matter in his pamphlet than in the celebrated Farmer's letters."[4]