It was in the midst of these ferments, and while these indications of an opinion that hostilities might be expected daily were multiplying on every side, that the people of Suffolk assembled in convention, and passed the resolutions already mentioned, which in boldness surpass any that had been adopted. [Sidenote: Provincial congress in Massachusetts.] Before the general agitation had risen to its present alarming height, governor Gage had issued writs for the election of members to a general assembly. These writs were afterwards countermanded by proclamation; but the proclamation was disregarded; the elections were held; and the delegates, who assembled and voted themselves a provincial congress, conducted the affairs of the colony as if they had been regularly invested with all the powers of government; and their recommendations were respected as sacred laws. [Sidenote: Prepares for defence.] They drew up a plan for the defence of the province; provided magazines, ammunition and prepares stores for twelve thousand militia; and enrolled a number of minute men, a term designating a select part of the militia, who engaged to appear in arms at a minute's warning. On the approach of winter, the general had ordered temporary barracks to be erected for the troops, partly for their security, and partly to prevent the disorders which would unavoidably result from quartering them in the town. Such however was the detestation in which they were held, that the select men and committees obliged the workmen to desist from the work, although they were paid for their labour by the crown, and although employment could, at that time, be seldom obtained. He was not much more successful in his endeavours to obtain carpenters in New York; and it was with considerable difficulty that these temporary lodgments could be erected. The agency for purchasing winter covering for the troops was offered to almost every merchant in New York; but such was the danger of engaging in this odious employment, that not only those who were attached to the party resisting the views of administration, but those also who were in secret friendly to those views, refused undertaking it, and declared "that they never would supply any article for the benefit of men who were sent as enemies to their country." [Sidenote: King's speech to parliament.] In Great Britain, a new parliament was assembled; and the King, in his opening speech, informed them, "that a most daring spirit of resistance and disobedience still prevailed in Massachusetts, and had broken forth in fresh violences of a very criminal nature; that the most proper and effectual measures had been taken to prevent these mischiefs; and that they might depend upon a firm resolution to withstand every attempt to weaken or impair the supreme authority of this legislature over all the dominions of the crown." [Sidenote: Proceedings of that body.] {1775}