John Hunter served for a time as justice of the Elizabeth City County, Va., court and as colonel of the county’s militia. He lived near Hampton, where he was also a merchant. During the French and Indian War, Hunter was also an agent for Thomlinson & Hanbury, the London trading firm through which the British government transferred funds to its military forces in North America, and as such, he was responsible for negotiating bills of exchange and dispensing specie to the army’s deputy paymaster general. Hunter sold out his considerable business and land interests in Virginia in 1766 and went to England to live.