With Dunmore on the _Fowey_ and the Assembly in Williamsburg, the remainder of the session was rather futile. There was renewed bickering over the removal of the powder, the Burgesses drew up a long address to the Governor criticizing his administration, and accusing him of misrepresenting conditions in Virginia in one of his letters to the Earl of Dartmouth. The Assembly adjourned on June 24, until October 12, and on that date, when only thirty-seven members showed up, adjourned again until March 7, 1776. This time less than a fourth of the Burgesses attended, and immediately adjourned to May 6, when several members met, "but did neither proceed to business nor adjourn, as a House of Burgesses." And so died the Virginia Assembly after more than a century and a half of existence, in which it had fought and won the good battle for liberty. It now remained for other bodies to defend and preserve that liberty for future generations.[41] Even while the Assembly was in session the government, in reality, had passed into the hands of the conventions and the committees of safety. As early as December, 1774, Dunmore wrote that the royal government had been "entirely overthrown." "There is not a justice of peace in Virginia that acts except as a committeeman. The abolishing of the courts of justice was the first step taken, in which the men of fortune and pre-eminence joined equally with the lowest and meanest. The General Court ... is in much the same predicament."[42] All that was needed to take the government completely out of the hands of the Governor and the Assembly was an executive head. And this was supplied by the third convention which met in Richmond in July, 1775, by the appointment of a "general committee of safety." To this body were appointed some of the ablest men in the colony--Pendleton, George Mason, John Page, Richard Bland, Thomas Ludwell Lee, and others. It was given almost dictatorial powers, for it had the supervision of military affairs, appointing officers, collecting supplies, and naming paymasters; it corresponded with the county committees, arrested Loyalists, held inquiries.[43] The convention, having created a body to take over the functions formerly exercised by the Governor and Council, itself practically replaced the dying Assembly. It prepared for the defense of the colony by raising two regular regiments and several thousand minutemen, reorganizing the militia, and setting up works for the manufacture of arms and powder. It authorized the Treasurer to issue L350,000 of paper money. It levied taxes on tithables, coaches, land, licenses, legal papers, etc.[44]