The greater part of each day was occupied in the Congress, but besides the regular business, there was a great deal of informal talk among the members. They were full of the subject, and used to meet to discuss affairs at dinner, or in knots about the fire at the City Tavern. Philadelphia was then the most important city in the country, and there were many men of wide experience living in it. Washington went everywhere by invitation. He dined with the Chief Justice, with the Mayor, and with all the notable people. In this way he was able to become better acquainted both with the state of affairs in other colonies and with the way the most intelligent people were thinking about the difficulties of the time. The first Continental Congress gave expression to the deliberate judgment of the colonies upon the acts of Great Britain. It protested against the manner in which Parliament was treating the colonies. It declared firmly and solemnly that as British subjects the people of the colonies owed no allegiance to Parliament, in which they had no representatives; that their own legislatures alone had the right to lay taxes. But after all, the great advantage of this first Congress was in the opportunity which it gave for representatives from the different colonies to become acquainted with one another, and thus to make all parts of the country more ready to act together. It was only now and then that any one suggested the independence of the colonies. Washington, like a few others, thought it possible the colonies might have to arm and resist the unlawful attempt to force unconstitutional laws upon them; but he did not, at this time, go so far as to propose a separation from England. He had a friend among the British officers in Boston, one of his old comrades in the war against France, a Captain Mackenzie, who wrote to him, complaining of the way the Boston people were behaving. Captain Mackenzie, very naturally, as an officer, saw only a troublesome, rebellious lot of people whom it was the business of the army to put down. Washington wrote earnestly to him, trying to show him the reason why the people felt as they did, and the wrong way of looking at the subject which Captain Mackenzie and other officers had. He expressed his sorrow that fortune should have placed his friend in a service that was sure to bring down vengeance upon those engaged in it. He went on: