The King punished the colonists for the Boston Tea Party.
He
passed the Boston Port Act, MARCH 7, 1774, effectively closing the
harbor to all commerce, intentionally ruining their economy.
Surrounding towns rallied by sending food.
William Prescott, who later commanded at Bunker Hill, wrote:
"Providence has placed you where you must stand the first shock...
If we submit to these regulations, all is gone..."
William Prescott continued:
"Our
forefathers passed the vast Atlantic, spent their blood and treasure,
that they might enjoy their liberties, both civil and religious, and
transmit them to their posterity...
Now if we should give them up, can our children rise up and call us blessed?"
Upon
hearing of the Boston Port Act, Thomas Jefferson drafted a Day of
Fasting & Prayer resolution, which was introduced in the Virginia
House of Burgesses by Robert Carter Nicholas, May 24, 1774, being
supported by Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee and George Mason.
It passed unanimously:
"This
House, being deeply impressed with apprehension...from the hostile
invasion of the city of Boston in our Sister Colony of Massachusetts
Bay, whose commerce and harbor are, on the first day of June next, to be
stopped by an armed force,
deem it highly necessary
that the said first day of June be set apart, by the members of this
House, as 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."
On the day of the appointed fast, June 1, 1774, George Washington wrote in his diary:
"Went to church, fasted all day."
The
King's appointed Royal Governor, Lord Dunmore, was so upset by this
Day of Fasting & Prayer resolution that two days later he dissolved
Virginia's House of Burgesses.
Virginia's colonial
leaders went down the street and gathered in Raleigh Tavern, where they
decided to form a Continental Congress, which two years later would
vote for independence from the King.
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