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At the crisis noticed, General Gage had been appointed Governor of Massachusetts Colony, as well as commander-in-chief, and four additional regiments had been despatched to his support. But Salem declined to avail herself of the proffered boon of exceptional franchises, and the House of Burgesses of Virginia ordered that “the day when the Boston Port Bill was to go into effect should be observed as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer.”

The Provincial Assembly did indeed meet at Salem, but solemnly resolved that it was expedient, at once, to call a General Congress of all the Colonies, to meet the unexpected disfranchisement of the people, and appointed five delegates to attend such Congress. All the Colonies except Georgia, whose governor prevented the election of delegates, were represented.

This body, known in history as the First Continental Congress, assembled in Carpenter’s Hall, Philadelphia, on the fifth day of September, 1774. Peyton Randolph, of Virginia, was elected president, and Charles Thompson, of Pennsylvania, was elected secretary. Among the representative men who took part in its solemn deliberations must be named Samuel Adams and John Adams, of Massachusetts; Philip Livingstone and John Jay, of New York; John Dickinson, of Pennsylvania; Christopher Gadsden and John Rutledge, of South Carolina; Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and George Washington, of Virginia.