ssage, but proceeded with their business; and, by a
vote of 117 to 12, having determined that a Committee should be
appointed to meet, as soon as may be, the Committees that are or shall
be appointed by the several colonies on this continent to consult
together upon the present state of the colonies, James Bowdoin, Thomas
Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Robert Treat Paine were selected
for that purpose, and funds were provided for defraying their expenses."
(Barry's History of Massachusetts, Second Period, Chap. xiv., pp. 484,
485.)]

CHAPTER XIX.

1774, UNTIL THE MEETING OF THE FIRST GENERAL CONGRESS IN SEPTEMBER.

The responses to the appeals of Boston and the proposals of the Assembly
of Massachusetts, for a meeting of Congress of all the colonies, were
prompt and general and sympathetic beyond what had been anticipated; and
in some colonies the expressions of approval and offers of co-operation
and assistance preceded any knowledge of what was doing, or had been
done, in Massachusetts.

In Virginia the House of Burgesses were in session when the news arrived
from England announcing the passing by the British Parliament of the
Boston Port Bill; and on the 26th of May the House resolved that the 1st
of June, the day on which that Bill was to go into effect, should be set
apart by the members as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer,
"devoutly to implore the Divine interposition for averting the heavy
calamities which threatened destruction to their civil rights, and the
evils of a civil war, and to give them one heart and one mind to oppose,
by all just and proper means, every injury to American rights." On the
publication of this resolution, the Governor (the Earl of Dunmore)
dissolved the House. But the members, before separating, entered into an
association and signed an agreement, to the number of 87, in which,
among other things, they declared "that an attack made on one of their
sister colonies, to compel submission to arbitrary taxes, was an attack
made on all British America, and threatened ruin to the civil rights of
all, unless the united wisdom of the whole be applied in prevention."
They therefore recommended to their 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 alre