This outrage, as it was viewed in England, caused a general demand for repressive measures, and the five “intolerable acts” were passed and sent oversea to do the last irremediable mischief.[73] Boston’s port was closed until the town should pay for the tea. Massachusetts’ charter was annulled, its town-meetings irksomely restrained, and its government so changed that its executive officers would all be under the king’s control. Two other acts provided for the care and judicial privileges of the soldiers who soon came to enforce the acts. Finally, great offence was given the Protestant colonies by granting religious freedom to the Catholics of Quebec, and the bounds of that colony were extended to the Ohio River,[74] thus arousing all the colonies claiming Western lands. Except in the case of Virginia, there was no real attack on their territorial integrity, but in the excitement there seemed to be. Some strong incentive for the colonies to act together had long been the only thing needed to send the flame of rebellion along the whole sea-coast. When the British soldiers began the enforcement of the punishment meted to Boston, sympathy and fear furnished the common bond. After several proposals of an intercolonial congress, the step was actually taken on a call from oppressed Massachusetts (June 17, 1774).[75] Delegates from every colony except Georgia met in Philadelphia in September, 1774. Seven of the twelve delegations were chosen not by the regular assemblies, but by revolutionary conventions called by local committees; while in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, three of the remaining five states, the assemblies that sent the delegates were wholly dominated by the revolutionary element. Local committees may therefore be said to have created the congress, and they would now stand ready to enforce its will. The assembled congress adopted a declaration of rights, but their great work was the forming an American association to enforce a non-importation and non-consumption agreement.[76] Local committees were to see that all who traded with England or refused to associate were held up as enemies of their country. The delegates provided for a new congress in the following May, and adjourned. Meanwhile, General Gage and his “pretorian guard” in Boston were administering the government of Massachusetts with noteworthy results. A general court of the colony was summoned by Gage, who, repenting, tried to put it off; but it met, formed a provincial congress, and, settling down at Cambridge, governed the whole colony outside of Boston. It held the new royal government to be illegal, ordered the taxes paid to its own receiver instead of Gage’s, and organized a militia. Gage at last determined to disarm the provincials. His raid to destroy the stores at Concord (April 19, 1775) resulted in an ignominious retreat and the loss of two hundred and seventy-three men, to say nothing of bringing sixteen thousand patriots swarming about Boston.