These monstrous statutes provoked the most decided resistance; all the other American colonists joined with Boston, and a solemn league and covenant was entered into for suspending all commercial intercourse with Great Britain until the obnoxious acts were repealed. On the 5th of Sept., 1774, a congress of fifty-one representatives from twelve old colonies assembled in Philadelphia. The instructions given to them disclaimed every idea of independence, recognized the constitutional authority of the mother country, and acknowledged the prerogatives of the crown; but unanimously declared that they would never give up the rights and liberties derived to them from their ancestors as British subjects, and pronounced the late acts relative to the colony of Massachusetts Bay to be unconstitutional, oppressive and dangerous. The first public act of the congress was a resolution declarative of their favorable disposition towards the colony above mentioned; and, by subsequent resolutions, they formally approved the opposition it had given to the obnoxious acts, and declared that, if an attempt were made to carry them into execution by force, the colony should be supported by all America. The following extract is from the "Address of the Twelve United Provinces to the Inhabitants of Great Britain," when force was actually used:--"We can retire beyond the reach of your navy, and, without any sensible diminution of the necessaries of life, enjoy a luxury, which from that period you will want--_the luxury of being free_." On the 16th of November, 1775, Edmund Burke proposed the renunciation on the part of Great Britain of the exercise of taxation in America, the repeal of the obnoxious duty on tea, and a general pardon for past political offenders. This was directly opposed by the King, who had lists brought to him of how the members spoke and voted, and was negatived in the House of Commons by 210 votes against 105. On the 20th November, after consultation with George III., Lord North introduced a Bill by which all trade and commerce with the thirteen United colonies were interdicted. It authorized the seizure, whether in harbor or on the high seas, of all vessels laden with American property, and by a cruel stretch of refined tyranny it rendered all persons taken on board American vessels liable to be entered as sailors on board British ships of war, and to serve (if required) against their own countrymen. About the same time, as we learn by a "secret" dispatch from Lord Dartmouth to General Howe, the King had been unmanly enough to apply to the Czarina of Russia for the loan of 20,000 Russian soldiers to enable him to crush his English subjects in the American colonies. As yet the Americans had made no claim for independence. They were only petitioners for justice.