The new House of Burgesses who met in March, 1756, while showing a willingness to support the war, were just as independent, just as jealous of their privileges as former ones. When some of their members were absent from their seats while attending the General Court, they sent their mace-bearer within the bar to bring them back. This Dinwiddie resented as an indignity to the court. The orderly administration of justice was just as important as the enacting of laws, he told the House. Their audacity was shown at the same session in the matter of the Acadian exiles. Governor Charles Lawrence, of Nova Scotia, on the advice of his Council, had decided to distribute these unfortunates throughout the British colonies. When the people of Virginia heard that a fleet with over eleven hundred had arrived in their waters, they were deeply concerned. No Governor had a right to unload on them such a number of French Roman Catholics, they said. Their remaining in the colony at a time when Great Britain and France were at war would be very dangerous. So they passed a bill, to which the Governor assented, to ship the exiles to Great Britain.[26] But while the Assembly was sitting, the Indians were making a series of murderous raids in the Valley of Virginia. Washington, who was left in command of the Virginia forces after Dunbar withdrew, wrote Dinwiddie in April, 1756, to describe the plight of the people. "I see their situation, know their danger, and participate in their sufferings, without having it in my power to give them further relief than uncertain promises.... The supplicating tears of the women, and moving petitions from the men melt me into such deadly sorrow that I solemnly declare ... I could offer myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering enemy provided that would contribute to the people's ease."[27] Nor were the Burgesses deaf to the sufferings of these poor people. Although the burden of taxation was very heavy, they voted L60,000 for the erection of forts and the sending of the militia into the Valley. Part of this sum they provided for by the emission of treasury notes. "In the situation I was obliged to give my assent or disband our forces and leave our frontier unguarded and exposed to the incursions of a merciless foe," Dinwiddie wrote the Board of Trade. But he assured them that the merchants would not be losers since the notes bore interest at five per cent, and would be redeemed in 1760. Virginia had voted in all L150,000 for the war, he pointed out, which was much more than any other colony had done.[28]