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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: War and Peace
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

SESSION OF THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES, 1774. 1 - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. II (1758-1775) [1889]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1889). Vol. II (1758-1775).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

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SESSION OF THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES, 1774.1

2May 5. Set off for Mr. Calvert’s; dined and lodged there.

6. After dinner returned home. Mr. and Mrs. Custis and Miss Calvert came home with us. Found Mr. Tilghman here.

7. Went with the above company to a boat race and barbecue at Johnson’s ferry. Returned at night with Mr. Milner.

8. Mr. Tilghman and Mr. Milner went away after breakfast. We (that is the rest) went to Pohick Church.

9. At home all day alone.

10. Miss Calvert, Miss (?) Custis and Mr. Custis went over to Maryland. I continued at home all day. Major Waggener and Mr. Thos. Triplet dined here.

11. At home all day alone.

12. Set off with Mrs. Washington for Williamsburg. Dined at Dumfries and lodged at Col. Lewis’s in Fredericksburg.

13. At Fredericksburg all day. Dined at Col. Lewis’s and spent the evening at Weedon’s.

14. Dined at Roys Ordinary and lodged at Tods Bridge.

15. Breakfasted at Ruffins Ferry and dined and lodged at Col. Bassett’s.

16. Came to Williamsburg, dined at the Governor’s, and spent the evening at Mrs. Campbell’s.

17. Dined at the Speaker’s and spent the evening at Southall’s.

18. Dined at the club at Mrs. Campbell’s and spent the evening at Southall’s.

19. Dined and spent the evening at Mrs. Campbell’s.

20. Dined at Mrs. Campbell’s, and spent the afternoon at my own lodgings.

21. Dined at the Speaker’s and went up to Colo. Bassett’s in the afternoon.

22. At Colo. Bassett’s all day.

23. Came to Williamsburg with Mrs. Washington. Dined at the Attorneys, and spent the evening there.

24. Dined at the Speaker’s, and spent the evening at Mrs. Campbell’s.

25. Dined and spent the evening at the Governor’s.

26. Rid out with the Governor to his farm and breakfasted with him there. Dined at Mrs. Dawson’s and spent the evening at my lodgings.

27. Dined at the Treasurer’s and went to the Ball given by the House of Burgesses to Lady Dunmore.

28. Dined at Mrs. Campbell’s and spent the evening at my lodgings.

29. Went to church in the fore and afternoon. Dined at Mrs. Dawson’s, and spent the evening at my lodgings.

30. Dined at Mr. Southall’s. Spent the evening in my own room.

31. Dined at Mr. Charlton’s, and spent the evening in my room.

June 1st. Went to church and fasted all day.

2. Dined at Mr. Charlton’s and came up to Col. Bassett’s in the afternoon.

3. At Colo. Bassett’s all day in company with Mr. Dandridge, &c.

4. Went up by water with Mr. and Mrs. Bassett, Mrs. Dandridge and Mrs. Washington to the land bought of Black in Kings and Queens. Returned to Col. Bassett’s to dinner.

5. At Col. Bassett’s all day.

6. Set [off] with him for Williamsburg. Dined at Richard Charlton’s and supped at Anderson’s.

7. Dined at Mrs. Dawson’s and spent the evening at the Raleigh.

8. Dined at the Raleigh and spent the evening at the Anderson’s.

9. Dined at the Raleigh and spent the evening there also.

10. Dined at the Raleigh and went to the fire works.

11. Dined at Mrs. Dawson’s, and went up to Colo. Bassett’s in the afternoon.

12. At Col. Bassett’s all day.

13. Returned with him to Williamsburg. Dined at the Raleigh, and spent the evening at Anderson’s.

14. Dined with the Council at Southall’s; and spent the evening at Anderson’s.

15. Dined at Mrs. Dawson’s and spent the evening at the Capitol at a meeting of the society for promoting useful knowledge.

16. Dined at the Governor’s and spent the evening at Anderson’s.

17. Dined at Anderson’s and spent the evening there.

18. Dined at Mrs. Dawson’s and came up to Col. Bassetts in the afternoon.

19. At Colo. Bassett’s all day.

20. Set off from thence on my return home. Dined at Todd’s Bridge and lodged at Hubbard’s.

21. Breakfasted at the Bolling Green, dined and lodged at Col. Lewis’s in Fredericksburg.

22. Reached home to a late dinner, after breakfasting at Acquia.

[1 ]From an interleaved Almanac.

[2 ]The Virginia Assembly convened at Williamsburg on Thursday, May 5th. The earlier days of the session were occupied with matters connected with the Indian outbreaks and the boundary disputes with Pennsylvania; but the news of the Boston Port Bill, closing that town to all foreign trade after June 1st, was soon known in Virginia, and in the then disturbed condition of public opinion could have but one effect. “Infinite astonishment and equal resentment,” wrote a member of the Assembly on the 20th, “have seized every one here, and a resort to the expedient of 1769-70, a general agreement to stop all trade with Britain, appeared probable. The House is now pushing on the public business for which we are called here at this time; but before we depart our measures will be settled and agreed on. The plan is extensive; it is wise, and I hope under God, it will not fail of success.” At the instance of the younger and more aggressive members of the Assembly, Robert Carter Nicholas moved on May 24th to appoint June 1st as a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer, and that the Burgesses attend church in a body on that day. The motion was carried, and the governor on the 26th, hearing that the fast was intended to prepare the minds of the people to receive other resolutions of the House, presumably intended to still more inflame the whole country and instigate the people to acts that might rouse the indignation of the mother country against them, with the unanimous consent of the council, dissolved the Assembly, on the ground that the terms of the resolution reflected highly upon the King and Parliament of Great Britain.

What these other resolutions might have been is shown by the paper prepared the day before dissolution by Richard Henry Lee, denouncing the closing of Boston as “a most violent and dangerous attempt to destroy the constitutional liberty and rights of all British America,” and proposing a general congress of the Colonies, “to consider and determine on ways the most effectual to stop the exports from North America, and for the adoption of such other measures as may be most decisive for securing the rights of America against the systematic plan formed for their destruction.” He was prevented from proposing these resolutions by many worthy members, “who wished to have the public business first finished, and who were induced to believe, from many conversations they had heard, that there was no danger of a dissolution.” R. H. Lee to Samuel Adams, 23 June, 1774. That the general temper of the Assembly was moderate is further shown by a letter from Lord Dunmore to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated the 29th: “I have heard from many of the dissolved members, and I hope it is true, that the House in general in the hasty manner the measure was proposed and agreed to, did not advert to the whole force of the terms in which the order I transmit [the appointment of a fast] is conceived, and that if it had, it is believed a strong opposition would have been made to it, and probably that it might have met a different fate.”

On the morning after the dissolution the members of the late House of Burgesses to the number of eighty-nine, met in the long room of the Raleigh Tavern, known as the Apollo, drew up an association, reciting their grievances against Great Britain, recommending the disuse of tea and East Indian products—a measure directed against the East India Company,—making the cause of Boston common to all the Colonies, and instructed the Committee of Correspondence to propose to the similar committees in the other Colonies to appoint deputies to meet in Congress at such place annually as should be most convenient; there to deliberate on those general measures which the united interests of America may require. Jefferson records that “nobody thought at that time of extending our association further, to the total interruption of our commerce with Great Britain; or if it was proposed by any (which I don’t recollect), it was condemned by the general sense of the members who formed that association.” Jefferson to A. Cary, 9 December, 1774. Indeed the moderate tone of what was done was not satisfactory to R. H. Lee, who was urging more decided steps. “The consequent conduct of the members was surely much too feeble in opposition to the very dangerous and alarming degree, to which despotism had advanced. So thinking, I did propose to the dissolved members a plan of a general congress, but they made a distinction between their then state, and that when they were members of the House of Burgesses.” Lee to Samuel Adams, 23 June, 1774. Nevertheless a circular letter under date May 28th was prepared and sent to the committees in the other Colonies, asking their views on the expediency of a general congress. This irregular, because self-constituted convention, appears to have dissolved on the same day.

On the following day (Sunday, May 29th) letters were received from some of the committees in the northern Colonies recommending a union of the southern Colonies against the rigorous and unconstitutional measures of the British ministry respecting America. Peyton Randolph, as moderator of the former meeting, deemed it expedient to summon the members, and in reply to his call twenty-five of them met on Monday the 30th, Washington among the number. (The names of the twenty-five are given in Purviance, Baltimore during the Revolution, 135.) The meeting unanimously agreed to a circular letter, from which the following extract is taken: “Most of the gentlemen present seemed to think it absolutely necessary for us to enlarge our late association, and that we ought to adopt the scheme of non-importation to a very large extent; but we were divided in our opinions as to stopping our exports. We could not, however, being so small a proportion of our late associates, presume to make any alteration in the terms of our general association, and we resolved to invite all the members of the late House of Burgesses to a general meeting in this city on the first day of August next. We fixed this distant day in the hopes of accommodating the meeting to every gentleman’s private affairs, and that they might in the meantime, have an opportunity of collecting the sense of their respective counties. The inhabitants of this city were convened yesterday afternoon, and most cheerfully acceded to the measure we had adopted.” The action of this assemblage led Dunmore to remark that it gave “too much cause to apprehend that the prudent views, and the regard to justice and equity, as well as loyalty and affection, which is publicly declared by many of the families of distinction here, will avail little against the turbulence and prejudice which prevail throughout the country; it is, however, at present quiet.” Lord Dunmore to the Earl of Dartmouth, 6 June, 1774.

The day of fasting was observed throughout the Colony. “The people met generally with anxiety and alarm in their countenances, and the effect of the day, through the whole Colony, was like a shock of electricity, arousing every man, and placing him erect and solidly on his center.” Jefferson, Works, i., 7. “The fast was obeyed throughout Virginia with such rigor and scruples, as to interdict the tasting of food between the rising and setting sun. With the remembrance of the King [Ministry?], horror was associated; in churches, as well as in the circles of social conversation, he seemed to stalk like the arch-enemy of mankind.” Edmund Randolph (quoted by Moncure D. Conway in his biography of Randolph).

The Governor issued writs for a new Assembly to meet on August 11th, but the troubled condition of public opinion led him later to prorogue it to the first Thursday in November. A series of papers by Thomson Mason, printed in the Gazette as the British-American, will repay study. They are reprinted in Force.