stined to crush to earth the little rebel town.

When the Virginia assembly met again, they proceeded to congratulate
the governor on the arrival of Lady Dunmore, and then suddenly, as
all was flowing smoothly along, there came a letter through the
corresponding committee which Washington had helped to establish,
telling of the measures against Boston. Everything else was thrown
aside at once, a vigorous protest was entered on the journal of the
House, and June 1, when the Port Bill was to go into operation, was
appointed a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer. The first result
was prompt dissolution of the assembly. The next was another meeting
in the long room of the Raleigh tavern, where the Boston bill
was denounced, non-importation renewed, and the committee of
correspondence instructed to take steps for calling a general
congress. Events were beginning to move at last with perilous
rapidity. Washington dined with Lord Dunmore on the evening of that
day, rode with him, and appeared at her ladyship's ball the next
night, for it was not his way to bite his thumb at men from whom he
differed politically, nor to call the motives of his opponents in
question. But when the 1st of June arrived, he noted in his diary that
he fasted all day and attended the appointed services. He always meant
what he said, being of a simple nature, and when he fasted and prayed
there was something ominously earnest about it, something that his
excellency the governor, who liked the society of this agreeable
man and wise counselor, would have done well to consider and draw
conclusions from, and which he probably did not heed at all. He might
well have reflected, as he undoubtedly failed to do, that when men
of the George Washington type fast and pray on account of political
misdoings, it is well for their opponents to look to it carefully.

Meantime Boston had sent forth appeals to form a league among the
colonies, and thereupon another meeting was held in the Raleigh
tavern, and a letter was dispatched advising the burgesses to consider
this matter of a general league and take the sense of their respective
counties. Virginia and Massachusetts had joined hands now, and they
were sweeping the rest of the continent irresistibly forward with
them. As for Washington, he returned to Mount Vernon and at once set
about taking the sense of his county, as he had agreed. Before doing
so he had some correspondence with his old friend Bryan Fairfax.