FEDERATE DELEGATION. 51

gress, in which was asserted the true principles
upon which depends political freedom.

When information of the Boston port bill first
reached Virginia, May 1774, the legislature be-
ing in session, adopted resolutions expressive
of their keen sense of the outrage upon Amer-
ican rights. The governor, noticing the ten-
dency of their measures, instantly dissolved the
session; but before their separation, eighty of
the members feigned an association, declaring
that an attack on one colony to compell sub-
mission to arbitrary taxes, is an attack on all Bri-
tish America, and threatens ruin to the rights
of all, unless the united wisdom of the whole be
applied in prevention. They therefore recom-
mended to the committee of correspondence, to
communicate with the several committees of the
other provinces, on the expediency of appointing
deputies from the different colonies, to meet an-
nually in general congress, and deliberate on
those general measures, which the united inter-
ests of America might from time to time ren-
der necessary. This measure had already
been proposed in town meetings in New York
and Boston.

The colonies, from New Hampshire to South
Carolina, inclusive, adopted this measure, and
where the legislatures wrre not in session, the
people either elected delegates, or elected a
committee to make such election for them.

In Maryland, the elections were made by