ts of the colonists, and of that province in particular,
and the infringements of them; to communicate them to the several towns,
as the sense of the town of Boston, and to request, of each town, a
free, communication of its sentiments on this subject.' I suppose,
therefore, that these resolutions were not received, as you think, while
the House of Burgesses was in session in March, 1773, but a few days
after we rose, and were probably what was sent by the messenger, who
crossed ours by the way. They may, however, have been still different.
I must, therefore, have been mistaken in supposing, and stating to Mr.
Wirt, that the proposition of a committee for national correspondence
was nearly simultaneous in Virginia and Massachusetts.

A similar misapprehension of another passage in Mr. Wirt's book, for
which I am also quoted, has produced a similar reclamation on the
part of Massachusetts, by some of her most distinguished and estimable
citizens. I had been applied to by Mr. Wirt, for such facts respecting
Mr. Henry, as my intimacy with him and participation in the transactions
of the day, might have placed within my knowledge. I accordingly
committed them to paper; and Virginia being the theatre of his action,
was the only subject within my contemplation. While speaking of him,
of the resolutions and measures here, in which he had the acknowledged
lead, I used the expression that 'Mr. Henry certainly gave the first
impulse to the ball of revolution.' [Wirt, page 41.] The expression is
indeed general, and in all its extension would comprehend all the sister
states; but indulgent construction would restrain it, as was really
meant, to the subject matter under contemplation, which was Virginia
alone; according to the rule of the lawyers, and a fair canon of general
criticism, that every expression should be construed _secundum subjectam
materiam_. Where the first attack was made, there must have been of
course, the first act of resistance, and that was in Massachusetts. Our
first overt act of war, was Mr. Henry's embodying a force of militia
from several counties, regularly armed and organized, marching them in
military array, and making reprisal on the King's treasury at the seat
of government, for the public powder taken away by his Governor. This
was on the last days of April, 1775. Your formal battle of Lexington was
ten or twelve days before that, and greatly overshadowed in importance,
as it preceded in time, our litt