Lord Dunmore. From the copy in the possession of the Virginia Historical Society of the original portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
The Governor's Palace, Williamsburg. Courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg, Inc.
The resolution stated that it was necessary to have a day of "fasting, humiliation, and prayer, devoutly to implore the divine interposition for averting the heavy calamity which threatens destruction to our civil rights, and the evils of civil war; to give us one heart and mind firmly to oppose, by all just and proper means, every injury to American rights; and that the minds of his Majesty and his Parliament may be inspired from above with wisdom, moderation, and justice to remove from the loyal people of America all cause of danger from a continued pursuit of measures pregnant with ruin." Dunmore thought the resolution reflected on the King and Parliament, and so made it necessary for him to dissolve the Assembly.[17]
But on June 1, in all parts of Virginia, the people dropped their daily tasks to assemble in the churches. Every face reflected the universal alarm, as the eastern aristocrat, the frontiersman in his buckskin clothes, the great landholder, and the small planter knelt in prayer. In Williamsburg the citizens and as many of the Burgesses as had remained in town, assembled at the courthouse and moved in solemn procession to the church to listen to a sermon by the chaplain of the House.[18] There had been no such solemn occasion since the French and Indian War, and it came as an electric shock to the people.[19]
In the meanwhile, events of great importance were taking place in Williamsburg. When Dunmore dissolved the Assembly, the Burgesses, instead of dispersing, met as they had done five years before in the Raleigh Tavern. Here, as they sat in the beautiful Apollo Room, they renewed the association to boycott English goods; proposed to the committees of correspondence in every colony that they appoint deputies to a continental Congress; and suggested that each county in Virginia should elect representatives to a convention to meet at Williamsburg on August 1.[20]
Despite their revolutionary activities, the members of the Assembly maintained cordial relations with the Governor. When Lady Dunmore joined her husband earlier in the spring, she was greeted with cheers by the people of Williamsburg. On May 26, the Burgesses gave a ball and entertainment in the Capitol in her honor. My lady seems to have been a most graceful dancer. When she and the Governor visited Norfolk where a ball was given them, the city authorities sent to Princess Anne County for Colonel Moseley to come "with his famous wig and shining buckles" to dance the minuet with her. So when the fiddles struck up away she went "sailing about the room in her great, fine hoop-petticoat, and Colonel Moseley after her wig and all."[21]
Most of the Burgesses of the Assembly of 1774 had hardly rested from their journey home when they had to repack their saddlebags, mount their horses, and set out again for Williamsburg to attend the provincial convention. When they had assembled they once more renewed the association, and then proceeded to the election of delegates to the Continental Congress. Randolph was chosen because it was thought he would preside, Washington because he might be called on to command the army, Henry and Richard Henry Lee because of their eloquence, Bland, Harrison, and Pendleton because of their ability as political leaders.
As these men turned their faces toward Philadelphia, their minds must have reverted to the series of violations of the rights of the people which had brought on the crisis. The questions George Washington asked himself no doubt were in the minds of all. "Does it not appear as clear as the sun in its meridian brightness that there is a regular, systematic plan formed to fix the right and practice of taxation upon us?... Does not the uniform conduct of Parliament for some years past confirm this?... Is not the attack upon the liberty and property of the people of Boston ... a plain and self-evident proof of what they are aiming at? Do not subsequent bills ... convince us that the administration is determined to stick at nothing to carry its point?"[22]
Congress met in the "plain and spacious rooms" on the lower floor of Carpenter's Hall which had been completed four years before. After some debate they adopted a Declaration of Rights and Grievances, stating the American case against taxation without representation and demanding the repeal of the "unpolitic, unjust, cruel, and unconstitutional" Intolerable Acts. They then framed a "Continental Association" to be enforced by local committees.