And now Richard Henry Lee's "Committee of Correspondence and Communication with the Sister Colonies" came into active service. Of course the governor had dissolved the assembly that adopted it. He was too late! From the moment of its adoption expresses were flying from Massachusetts to Virginia, back and forth, with details of every step in the progress of events. William Lee wrote from London that "this inter-colonial consultation had struck a greater panic in the ministers than all that had taken place since the Stamp Act." The expresses travelled fast. Not for nothing had the Virginians bred fleet horses and trained fearless riders! It was said of those riders that "they must almost have flown," so promptly did the pulse in Virginia respond to the heart-throb in Massachusetts. The news from Boston was overwhelming. Not only was the port to be closed as punishment--the thumb-screw drew still closer. Parliament passed an "Act whereby the People of Boston shall have no power of trying any Soldier or Person for committing any crime: all such offenders to be sent Home for legal Tryal." 14 Geo. III, c. 39. The Virginia leaders were not surprised. The little cloud, no bigger than a man's hand in 1766, had never disappeared altogether. For ten years the storm had been gathering. The sky was now overcast, the thunder was heard, the tempest was at hand. With a keen realization of all that resistance implied, some of them hesitated. Many of them were descendants of the royalists who had come over after the execution of Charles the First. They knew what revolution meant! The halter and the scaffold were still vivid in their traditions. When the news came of the Act of Parliament closing the port, the House of Burgesses was in session. They ordained "a day of solemn fasting, humiliation and prayer, devoutly to implore the Divine interposition for averting a heavy calamity which threatens the civil rights of America." Every man, one would think, has a right to humble himself, abstain from food, and pray God for help in time of trouble. Not so thought his Excellency, Governor Dunmore. Summoning the Honorable--the House of Burgesses--to his Council Chamber, he spoke to them thus: "Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the House of Burgesses, I have in my hand a paper published by order of your House conceived in such terms as reflect highly upon his Majesty and the Parliament of Great Britain, which makes it necessary for me to dissolve you, and you are dissolved accordingly." So, then, the guardians of the colony were to be sent home to do their fasting and praying in private, and perchance repent or hold their tongues, at least. But just here the unexpected happened. While the Virginians were growing more and more hostile to Lord Dunmore and treating him with ill-disguised contempt, his family arrived at Williamsburg,--the Right Honorable, the Countess of Dunmore, Lord Fincastle, and the Ladies Catherine, Augusta, and Susan Murray.