s indeed approaching, but were not dismayed by
its terrors. Far from seeking to shelter themselves from the
threatening storm by submission, they grew more determined as it
increased.

Resolutions were passed, expressing their opinion of the impolicy,
injustice, inhumanity, and cruelty of the act, from which they
appealed to God, and to the world; and also inviting the other
colonies to join with them in an agreement to stop all imports and
exports to and from Great Britain, Ireland, and the West Indies, until
the act should be repealed.[232]

[Footnote 232: Minot.]

It was not in Boston only that this spirit was roused. Addresses were
received from every part of the continent, expressing sentiments of
sympathy in their afflictions, exhorting them to resolution and
perseverance, and assuring them that they were considered as suffering
in the common cause.

The legislature of Virginia was in session when intelligence of the
Boston port bill reached that province. The house of Burgesses set
apart the first of June, the day on which the bill was to go into
operation, for fasting, prayer, and humiliation, to implore the divine
interposition to avert the heavy calamity which threatened the
destruction of their civil rights, the evils of a civil war; and to
give one heart and one mind to the people, firmly to oppose every
invasion of their liberties. Similar resolutions were adopted in
almost every province; and the first of June became, throughout the
colonies, a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, in the course of
which sermons were preached to the people, well calculated to inspire
them with horror, against the authors of the unjust sufferings of
their fellow subjects in Boston.

[Sidenote: A general congress proposed.]

This measure occasioned the dissolution of the assembly. The members,
before separation, entered into an association, in which they declared
that an attack on one colony to compel submission to arbitrary taxes,
is an attack on all British America, and threatens ruin to the rights
of all, unless the united wisdom of the whole be applied in
prevention. They, therefore, recommended to the committee of
correspondence, to communicate with the several committees of the
other provinces, on the expediency of appointing deputies from the
different colonies, to meet annually in congress, and to deliberate on
the common interests of America. This measure had already been
proposed in town meetings,