160 Steps towards union. [1773-4 difficulty. But, as each month passed, events were making it more clear that the cause of Boston was the cause of the whole body of colonies. The day on which the Act for closing the port of Boston came into force was kept as a fast-day in Virginia and other colonies. Virginia and Maryland resolved to export no tobacco. The former colony helped Boston with a public contribution of corn, South Carolina with one of rice. From almost all the colonies came words of approval and encouragement. The resistance to the Stamp Act had, as we have seen, given birth to a policy of corporate action on the part of the various colonies. No attempt had been made in the meantime to revive such a movement; but the subject had not been overlooked or forgotten. In the autumn of 1773 two letters appeared in the Boston Gazette, which were known to issue from the pen of Samuel Adams. The first set forth the necessity for a Congress ; and it is noteworthy that the expression used was not a Congress of "Colonies'" but of "States." The Congress was to draw up a Bill of Rights ; it was to be an annual institution, and was to have an ambassador at the British Court. In the second letter the question was asked, " How shall the colonists force their oppressors to proper terms ? " And the answer is, " Form an independent State or American Commonwealth." In estimating the policy of British statesmen towards the colonies we must never forget that those words had been written by one who was no mere rhetorician, but one of the subtlest, the most patient, and the most persistent of organisers. For more than a year Committees of Correspondence had been established to enable the colonies to concert measures of resistance. These committees were now employed to call into existence a Congress, to which all the colonies, Georgia excepted, sent delegates. Gage endeavoured to prevent the Assembly of Massachusetts from electing representatives to the Congress, and refused to approve of a vote of money from the public chest for their expenses. The Assembly, however, locked its doors and completed the election before Gage could intervene, and raised the necessary funds by a special rate. It is clear that in other colonies there was no regular and definite process by which the members of Congress were chosen, nor any precise qualification for voters. That this should have passed unchallenged is a strong proof of that lack of purpose, of organisation, and of method, which through- out the whole struggle characterised the supporters of the British government in America. The proceedings of the first Congress, which met in 1774, are fully recorded by John Adams, who was one of the Massachusetts delegates. He tells how in New York he and his colleagues were warned not to alarm the southern delegates, who were prepared to regard the New Englanders as dangerous incendiaries ; how they acted on the hint and modified their language, with the result that they were set down as
