had all the force of a law. It was a triumph to many of the sons of liberty to think that the house had out-generalled the governor. Sometime before the dissolution of the general court, near upon three hundred citizens of _Philadelphia_ met and appointed a committee to write to Boston. Their letter was temperate and firm. They acknowledged the difficulty of offering the inhabitants advice upon the sad occasion that existed; wished first to have the sense of the province in general; and observed that all lenient applications for obtaining redress should be tried, before recourse was had to extremities. They remarked that it might perhaps be right to take the sense of a general congress, before the desperate measure of putting an entire stop to commerce was adopted; and that it might be right at any rate, to reserve that measure as the last resource when all other means had failed. They mentioned, that if the making of restitution to the East-India Company for their teas would put an end to the unhappy controversy, and leave the people of Boston upon their ancient footing of constitutional liberty, it could not admit of a moment’s doubt what part they should take; but they added, it was not the value of the tea, it was the indefeasible right of giving and granting their own money, a right from which they could never recede, that was now the matter of consideration. The importance and necessity of a general congress was soon felt by every colony, so that the measure taken by the Massachusetts was gradually adopted by the others. _Maryland_, whose zeal in the cause of liberty was ardent, had a meeting of the committees appointed by the several counties, at the city of Annopolis, who elected five deputies for that province [June 25.] “to attend a general congress, at such time and place as may be agreed on, to effect one general plan of conduct, operating on the commercial connection of the colonies with the mother country, for the relief of Boston and preservation of American liberty.” This meeting commenced three days before the election of deputies; and considering the distance of Salem from Annopolis, cannot be ascribed to the transaction of the Massachusetts assembly on the seventeenth; beside it appears from the words _at such time and place as may be agreed on_, that the committees did not know that the Massachusetts assembly had mentioned the convening of a general congress on the first of September at Philadelphia.