intercourse with Great Britain, from the last day of the ensuing month
of August, until the Boston port bill, and the other late obnoxious
laws should be repealed. They also bound themselves, in the same
manner, not to consume, or purchase from any other, any goods whatever
which should arrive after the specified time; and to break off all
dealings with the purchasers as well as with the importers of such
goods. They renounced, also, all intercourse and connexion with those
who should refuse to subscribe to that covenant, or to bind themselves
by some similar agreement; and annexed to the renunciation of
intercourse, the dangerous penalty of publishing to the world, the
names of all who refused to give this evidence of attachment to the
rights of their country.

General Gage issued a proclamation in which he termed this covenant
"an unlawful, hostile, and traitorous combination, contrary to the
allegiance due to the King, destructive of the legal authority of
parliament, and of the peace, good order, and safety of the
community." All persons were warned against incurring the pains and
penalties due to such dangerous offences; and all magistrates were
charged to apprehend and secure for trial such as should be guilty of
them. But the time when the proclamation of governors could command
attention had passed away; and the penalties in the power of the
committee of correspondence were much more dreaded than those which
could be inflicted by the civil magistrate.[233]

[Footnote 233: Belsham. Minot.]

Resolutions were passed in every colony in which legislatures were
convened, or delegates assembled in convention, manifesting different
degrees of resentment, but concurring in the same great principles.
All declared that the cause of Boston was the cause of British
America; that the late acts respecting that devoted town were
tyrannical and unconstitutional; that the opposition to this
ministerial system of oppression ought to be universally and
perseveringly maintained; that all intercourse with the parent state
ought to be suspended, and domestic manufactures encouraged; and that
a general congress should be formed for the purpose of uniting and
guiding the councils, and directing the efforts, of North America.

The committees of correspondence selected Philadelphia for the place,
and the beginning of September as the time, for the meeting of this
important council.

[Sidenote: Congress assembles.]

On the fo