both in New York and Boston.

[Sidenote: General Gage arrives in Boston.]

While the people of Boston were engaged in the first consultations
respecting the bill directed particularly against themselves, general
Gage arrived in town. He was received, notwithstanding the deep gloom
of the moment, with those external marks of respect which had been
usual, and which were supposed to belong to his station.

The general court convened by the governor at Salem, passed
resolutions, declaring the expediency of a meeting of committees from
the several colonies; and appointed five gentlemen as a committee on
the part of Massachusetts. The colonies from New Hampshire to South
Carolina inclusive, adopted this measure; and, where the legislatures
were not in session, elections were made by the people. The
legislature of Massachusetts also passed declaratory resolutions
expressing their opinion on the state of public affairs, and
recommending to the inhabitants of that province to renounce, totally,
the consumption of East India teas, and to discontinue the use of all
goods imported from the East Indies and Great Britain, until the
grievances of America should be completely redressed.

The governor, having obtained intelligence of the manner in which the
house was employed, sent his secretary with directions to dissolve the
assembly. Finding the doors shut, and being refused admittance, he
read the order of dissolution aloud on the staircase. The next day,
the governor received an address from the principal inhabitants of
Salem, at that time the metropolis of the province, which marks the
deep impression made by a sense of common danger. No longer
considering themselves as the inhabitants of Salem, but as Americans,
and spurning advantages to be derived to themselves from the distress
inflicted on a sister town, for its zeal in a cause common to all,
they expressed their deep affliction for the calamities of Boston.

About this time rough drafts of the two remaining bills relative to
the province of Massachusetts, as well as of that for quartering
troops in America, were received in Boston, and circulated through the
continent. They served to confirm the wavering, to render the moderate
indignant, and to inflame the violent.

An agreement was framed by the committee of correspondence in Boston,
entitled "a solemn league and covenant," whereby the subscribers bound
themselves, "in the presence of God," to suspend all commercial