tercolonial action. In June 1772
the British ship, Gaspee, ran aground while on customs duty in
Narragansett Sound. Rhode Islanders burned the ship to the water line,
injuring the captain in the process. When the guilty colonists, who
were well-known members of the Providence community, were not
apprehended, a royal proclamation was issued decreeing trial in England
for any of the culprits caught and granting use of troops to help
apprehend them. A royal commission was dispatched to Rhode Island. Such
a commission, if once the precedent was established, could be used
against all the colonies.

For a long time Richard Henry Lee had been advocating an intercolonial
committee of correspondence. Now the time had come to act and for all
the colonies to be more alert to these "transgressions" and "intrusions
upon justice." On March 12, 1773 the House of Burgesses, on a motion by
Dabney Carr, burgess from Albemarle County and brother-in-law to
Jefferson, established a Committee of Correspondence composed of Bland,
Richard Henry Lee, Henry, Jefferson, Robert Carter Nicholas, Benjamin
Harrison, Edmund Pendleton, Dudley Digges, Carr, and Archibald Cary to
inquire into the Gaspee affair. More importantly, the resolution called
upon all the other assemblies to "appoint some person or persons of
their respective bodies to communicate from time to time, with the said
committee."[27] Said an unknown "Gentleman of Distinction" (probably a
Lee) in the Virginia Gazette the following day, "... we are
endeavoring to bring our Sister Colonies into the strictest Union with
us; that we may resent, in one Body, any Steps that may be taken by
Administration to deprive any one of us the least Particle of our
Rights and Liberties." Within months every colony had a committee of
correspondence. And within months the "Administration" would deprive
Boston of its rights and liberties.

[27] For the resolution see, Van Schreeven and Scribner,
Revolutionary Virginia, I, 89-92. Also note that this committee
consists of men who ware on opposite sides of the fence in the
Stamp Act debate in 1765.

The Boston Tea Party and the Intolerable Acts

Reaction to the Tea Act was nearly unanimous. The tax should not be
paid and a boycott on tea imposed. A boycott developed in Virginia.
Merchants exhausted their stocks and refused to replenish them. Most
Virginians ceased drinking tea. No one, however, was prepared to resort
to violenc