similar propositions; for Mr. Wells shows that Massachusetts did not
adopt the measure, but on the receipt of our proposition, delivered at
their next session. Their message, therefore, which passed ours, must
have related to something else, for I well remember Peyton Randolph's
informing me of the crossing of our messengers. **

* Life of Washington, vol. ii. p. 151.
** See Appendix, note B.

The next event which excited our sympathies for Massachusetts, was the
Boston port bill, by which that port was to be shut up on the 1st of
June, 1774. This arrived while we were in session in the spring of that
year. The lead in the House, on these subjects, being no longer left to
the old members, Mr. Henry, R. H. Lee, Fr. L. Lee, three or four other
members, whom I do not recollect, and myself, agreeing that we must
boldly take an unequivocal stand in the line with Massachusetts,
determined to meet and consult on the proper measures, in the council
chamber, for the benefit of the library in that room. We were under
conviction of the necessity of arousing our people from the lethargy
into which they had fallen, as to passing events; and thought that the
appointment of a day of general fasting and prayer, would be most likely
to call up and alarm their attention. No example of such a solemnity had
existed since the days of our distress in the war of '55, since which
a new generation had grown up. With the help, therefore, of Rushworth,
whom we rummaged over for the revolutionary precedents and forms of
the Puritans of that day, preserved by him, we cooked up a resolution,
somewhat modernizing their phrases, for appointing the 1st day of
June, on which the port bill was to commence, for a day of fasting,
humiliation, and prayer, to implore Heaven to avert from us the evils of
civil war, to inspire us with firmness in support of our rights, and to