Life of George Washington, volume 1 of 5Irving, Washington
History
Life of George Washington, volume 1 of 5
Irving, Washington
Presidents -- United States -- Biography; Washington, George, 1732-1799
As on a former occasion, the Assembly, though dissolved, was not dispersed.
The members adjourned to the long room of the old Raleigh tavern, and
passed resolutions, denouncing the Boston port bill as a most dangerous
attempt to destroy the constitutional liberty and rights of all North
America; recommending their countrymen to desist from the use, not merely
of tea, but of all kinds of East Indian commodities: pronouncing an attack
on one of the colonies, to enforce arbitrary taxes, an attack on all; and
ordering the committee of correspondence to communicate with the other
corresponding committees, on the expediency of appointing deputies from the
several colonies of British America, to meet annually in GENERAL CONGRESS,
at such place as might be deemed expedient, to deliberate on such measures
as the united interests of the colonies might require.
This was the first recommendation of a General Congress by any public
assembly, though it had been previously proposed in town meetings at New
York and Boston. A resolution to the same effect was passed in the Assembly
of Massachusetts before it was aware of the proceedings of the Virginia
Legislature. The measure recommended met with prompt and general
concurrence throughout the colonies, and the fifth day of September next
ensuing was fixed upon for the meeting of the first Congress, which was to
be held at Philadelphia.
Notwithstanding Lord Dunmore's abrupt dissolution of the House of
Burgesses, the members still continued on courteous terms with him, and the
ball which they had decreed early in the session in honor of Lady Dunmore,
was celebrated on the 27th with unwavering gallantry.
As to Washington, widely as he differed from Lord Dunmore on important
points of policy, his intimacy with him remained uninterrupted. By
memorandums in his diary it appears that he dined and passed the evening at
his lordship's on the 25th, the very day of the meeting at the Raleigh
tavern. That he rode out with him to his farm, and breakfasted there with
him on the 26th, and on the evening of the 27th attended the ball given to
her ladyship. Such was the well-bred decorum that seemed to quiet the
turbulence of popular excitement, without checking the full and firm
expression of popular opinion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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