black-edged paper, adorned with a death's head and cross-bones, was hawked about, coupled with the epithets of "cruel, barbarous, bloody, and inhuman murder," and solemnly burned by the assembled populace. Agents were sent to the other colonies to engage them in the common cause. Numbers of the clergy, from their pulpits, animated the people to resistance, while the press teemed with the most moving and vigorous appeals to their feelings. The news of the injury inflicted on Boston, produced throughout the colonies a general and spontaneous feeling of indignation.
The House of Burgesses in Virginia, was in session when the bill for closing the port of Boston arrived. They immediately proceeded to pass the following order. May 24th, 1774: "This House bang deeply impressed with apprehension of the great dangers to be derived to British America, from the hostile invasion of the city of Boston, in our sister colony of Massachusetts Bay, whose commerce and harbor are, on the first day of June next, to be stopped by an armed force, deem it highly necessary that the said first day of June next be set apart by the members of this House, as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, devoutly to implore the Divine interposition for averting the heavy calamity which threatens destruction to our civil rights, and the evils of civil war; to give us one heart and one mind, firmly to oppose, by all just and proper means, every injury to American rights; and that the minds of his Majesty and his Parliament may be inspired from above with wisdom, moderation, and justice, to remove from the loyal people of America all cause of danger, from a continued pursuit of measures pregnant with their ruin. Ordered, therefore, That the members of this house do attend in their places, at the hour of ten in the forenoon, on the said first day of June next, in order to proceed with the speaker and the mace to the church in this city, for the purposes aforesaid; and that the Rev. Mr. Price be appointed to read prayers, and to preach a sermon suitable to the occasion." For this independent conduct the House was dissolved the next day by Lord Dunmore, the governor. The members thereupon withdrew to a convenient place in the vicinity, formed themselves into a vigilance committee, and adopted a spirited declaration of their views, in which a General Congress was strongly urged.[1] Washington was at his post as a member of the House, and took his full share in its patriotic proceedings. He was no idle spectator of the progress of events. Although on intimate terms with Lord Dunmore, the governor, his whole soul was deeply interested in the momentous questions at issue, and he was prepared to go the full length with his countrymen in resisting the tyrannous course of Parliament. "For my own part," he says, in one of his letters, "I shall not undertake to say where the line between Great Britain and the colonies should be drawn, but I am clearly of opinion that one ought to be drawn, and our rights clearly ascertained. I could wish, I own, that the dispute had
- ↑ See Appendix I., at the end of the preset chapter.
