In the previous February the Governor had written the Lords of Trade warning them of the temper of the people. "I must not venture to flatter your Lordships that they will ever willingly submit to being taxed by the mother country. The reverse is their creed. They universally avow a most ardent desire to assist upon every occasion, but pray to be allowed to do it in consequence of requisition."[3] It seems strange, then, that he should have been surprised to hear that the Burgesses had passed several resolutions asserting the rights of the people. They declared that the sole right of imposing taxes "is now, and ever hath been" constitutionally vested in the House of Burgesses; that the people have the right to petition the sovereign for redress of grievances; and that trials for crimes committed in the colony should be tried in the Virginia courts.[4] The next day the Governor summoned the Council and Burgesses to the Council Chamber, where he said he had heard of the resolutions, that he predicted they would have an ill effect, and that according to his duty, he dissolved them. But the Burgesses would not be silenced. Filing out of the Capitol, they went to the nearby Raleigh Tavern for an unofficial session. After they had elected Peyton Randolph moderator, they discussed the serious problems facing the colony. They then appointed a committee to draw up a plan for an association, and adjourned until the next day. The report of the committee, which was signed by eighty-eight men is a document of the greatest importance in the history of the clash between the American colonies and Great Britain. It spoke of the "grievances and distresses" with which the people were oppressed, of the evils which threatened their ruin and the ruin of their posterity by reducing them "from a free and happy people to a wretched and miserable state of slavery." They denounced "the restrictions, prohibitions, and ill-advised regulations in several late acts of Parliament," and declared that the "unconstitutional act imposing duties on tea, paper, glass, etc. for the sole purpose of raising a revenue in America is injurious to property, and destructive to liberty."[5] Those who signed the association promised to discourage luxury and extravagance, agreed not to import goods taxed by Parliament or any of a long list of commodities, until the hated duties were removed. After all had affixed their signatures, they gathered around the punch bowl to drink a series of toasts--to the King, the Queen and the Royal Family, Lord Botetourt, A Speedy and lasting Union between Great Britain and her Colonies, The Constitutional British Liberty in America and all true Patriots, the Supporters thereof, the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Shelburne, Colonel Barre, the late Speaker, etc. At last, either because the liquor or the toasts gave out, the meeting came to an end.[6]