UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (May-June). Effects of the Boston Port Bill. The call for a Continental Congress. "The Boston Port Bill was received in America with honors not accorded even to the Stamp Act. It was cried through the streets as 'A barbarous, cruel, bloody, and inhuman murder,' and was burnt by the common hangman on a scaffold forty-five feet high. The people of Boston gathered together in town-meeting at Faneuil Hall, and expresses were sent off with an appeal to all Americans throughout America. The responses from the neighborhood came like snow-flakes. Marblehead offered the use of its wharves to the Boston merchants; Salem averred that it would be lost to all feelings of humanity were it to raise its fortunes on the ruins of its neighbor. Newburyport voted to break off trade with Great Britain, and to lay up its ships. Connecticut, as her wont is, when moved by any vital occurrence, betook herself to prayer and humiliation, first, however, ordering an inventory to be taken of her cannon and military stores. Virginia, likewise, resolved to invoke the divine interposition, but, before another resolution which called for a Congress could be introduced, her House was precipitately dissolved; whereupon the resolution was brought up and passed at a meeting called in 'the Apollo,' where it was further declared that an attack on one colony was an attack upon all. Two days later the Massachusetts letter itself was received, upon which the Virginians called a convention. From all parts contributions in money poured into Boston, and resolutions were everywhere passed, declaring that no obedience was due the late acts of Parliament; that the right of imperial taxation did not exist; that those who had accepted office under pay of the king had violated their public duty; that the Quebec act establishing Roman Catholicism in Canada was hostile to the Protestant religion, and that the inhabitants of the colonies should use their utmost diligence to acquaint themselves with the art of war, and for that purpose should turn out under arms at least once a week. In the fulness of time, a cordon of ships was drawn around Boston, and six regiments and a train of artillery were encamped on the Common—the only spot in the thirteen colonies where the government could enforce an order. The conflict between constitutional liberty and absolutism had now reached that dangerous point where physical force became one of its elements. … The situation was at once recognized throughout the colonies, and the knowledge that in union there is strength, manifested itself in one general impulse toward a Colonial Congress. Committees of Correspondence were organized in every county, and throngs attended the public meetings. {3210} 'One great, wise, and noble spirit; one masterly soul