He was likely born around 1754 and historians believe that he is possibly the same Billy that was enslaved by the wealthy planter John Tayloe II[a] who had one of his employees place an advertisement about a runaway "mulatto" in 1774.
[5] Billy had been charged with joining the British forces aboard an armed vessel with the intent to fight against the colonies during the American Revolutionary War.
This was not an uncommon accusation during this period, as many enslaved people had been promised their freedom in return for fighting for the British (see Black Loyalists); however, Billy argued that he had been forced onto the ship and that he had never taken up arms.
[6] Two of the jury members, Henry Lee II and William Carr, along with Mann Page, argued against Billy's death sentence and wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson, then Governor of Virginia, to appeal for clemency.
Lee and Carr felt that an enslaved person "not being Admitted to the Priviledges [sic] of a Citizen owes the State No Allegiance and that the Act declaring what shall be treason cannot be intended by the Legislature to include slaves who have neither lands or other property to forfeit.