Mr. _Speaker_ laid before the House the Letters from the Speakers of the lower Houses of Assembly of the British Colonies in _America_, with other Papers, upon the subject matter, which were referred to the standing Committee of Correspondence and Inquiry. And the said _Letters_ and _Papers_ were read. _Resolved_, that the said Letters and Papers be taken into Consideration upon this Day Sevenight.... A _Message_ from the Governor by Mr. _Blair_: "Mr. _Speaker_: the Governor commands this House to attend his Excellency immediately, in the Council Chamber." Accordingly Mr. _Speaker_ with the House, went up to attend his Excellency in the Council Chamber, where his Excellency was pleased to say to them. "Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the House of Burgesses, "I have in my hand a Paper published by Order of your House, conceived in such Terms as reflect highly upon his Majesty and the Parliament of Great Britain; which makes it necessary for me to dissolve you; and you are dissolved accordingly." _e. Virginia Ex-burgesses propose an Annual Continental Congress_ _Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1773-1776_, xiii, xiv. This is the first such proposal by any body of men so nearly approaching a "government." _ ... an Association signed by eighty nine members of the House of Burgesses, in session in the old Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, on May 27th, 1774:_ We his Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the late representatives of the good people of this country, having been deprived by the sudden interposition of the executive part of this government from giving our countrymen the advice we wished to convey to them in a legislative capacity, find ourselves under the hard necessity of adopting this, the only method we have left, of pointing out to our countrymen such measures as in our opinion are best fitted to secure our dearest rights and liberty from destruction, by the heavy hand of power now lifted against _North America_: With much grief we find that our dutiful applications to _Great Britain_ for security of our ancient and constitutional rights, have been not only disregarded, but that a determined system is formed and pressed for reducing the inhabitants of _British America_ to slavery by subjecting them to the payment of taxes imposed without the consent of the people or their representatives; and that in pursuit of this system, we find an act of the British parliament, lately passed, for stopping the harbour and commerce of the town of _Boston_, in our sister colony of _Massachusetts Bay_, until the people there submit to the payment of such unconstitutional taxes, and which act most violently and arbitrarily deprives them of their property, in wharfs erected by private persons, at their own great and proper expense, which act is, in our opinion, a most dangerous attempt to destroy the constitutional liberty and rights of all _North America_. It is further our opinion, that as Tea, on its importation