was
to halt the trade altogether. The major stumbling block to action was
non-exportation of tobacco and non-collection of debts. While most
exponents of non-exportation and non-collection wanted to break the
business links to Britain and to hasten resolution of the
constitutional impasse, there were some Virginians who undoubtedly
believed that these measures would bring them relief from their
creditors. The majority of the delegates, however, including many of
the radicals and those most deeply in debt, held it was improper to
refuse to send to England tobacco promised to merchants and creditors.
Such a tactic was a violation of private contract and personal honor.
Radical Thomson Mason put it succinctly, "Common honesty requires that
you pay your debts."

Eventually a series of compromises was worked out. All importations
from Britain and the West Indies would cease on November 1, 1774; all
slave importations would cease the same day; no tea would be drunk; and
colonists would wear American-manufactured clothes and support American
industries. If these measures did not bring relief and redress of
grievances, all exports would cease on August 10, 1775. To assure
compliance and enforcement of these agreements 107 delegates signed the
Virginia Association binding themselves together in common action. The
convention elected and instructed Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee,
Washington, Henry, Bland, Harrison, and Pendleton "to represent this
Colony in general Congress". They then departed to establish committees
and associations in every county and town in Virginia. Determination to
aid Massachusetts and a conviction that if one colony suffered, all
suffered, permeated the convention resolutions. John Adams confided in
his diary on August 23, "... saw the Virginia Paper. The Spirit of the
People is prodigious. Their Resolutions are really grand."

Two publications issued during the summer of 1774 confirm the degree to
which Virginians were moving away from Britain toward an autonomous
commonwealth status with the king the only link binding the colonies to
the mother country. The first was a series of letters published in the
Virginia Gazette (Rind) during June and July signed by a
"British American", who later identified himself as Thomson Mason, the
outspoken brother of George Mason. The second were notes and
resolutions by Thomas Jefferson, later published and distributed widely
throughout the colonies under the titl