The first actual step towards this measure was taken in Virginia. A new House of Burgesses had been summoned by the royal Governor to meet in May, 1774. Soon after the members had assembled at Williamsburg, they received the news that, by an act of Parliament, the port of Boston was to be closed on the first day of the succeeding June, and that other disabilities were to be inflicted on the town. They immediately passed an order, setting apart the first day of June as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, "to implore the Divine interposition for averting the heavy calamity which threatened destruction to their civil rights, and the evils of civil war, and to give them one heart and one mind firmly to oppose, by all just and proper means, every injury to American rights." Thereupon, the Governor dissolved the House. But the members immediately assembled at another place of meeting, and, having organized themselves as a committee, drew up and subscribed an Association, in which they declared that the interests of all the colonies were equally concerned in the late doings of Parliament, and advised the local Committee of Correspondence to consult with the committees of the other colonies on the expediency of holding a general Continental Congress. Pursuant to these recommendations, a popular convention was holden at Williamsburg, on the 1st of August, which appointed seven persons as delegates to represent the people of Virginia in a general Congress to be held at Philadelphia in the September following.[5] The Massachusetts Assembly met on the last of May, and, after negativing thirteen of the Councillors, Governor Gage adjourned the Assembly to meet at Salem on the 7th of June. When they came together at that place, the House of Representatives passed a resolve, declaring a meeting of committees from the several colonies on the continent to be highly expedient and necessary, to deliberate and determine upon proper measures to be recommended to all the colonies for the recovery and establishment of their just rights and liberties, civil and religious, and for the restoration of union and harmony with Great Britain. They then appointed five delegates[6] to meet the representatives of the other colonies in congress at Philadelphia, in the succeeding September.