Pennsylvania approved these resolutions; Delaware adopted them
word for word; and the colonies south of Virginia eventually imitated
her example. An address was also prepared to be laid before the king.
Botetourt took alarm at what he termed, in his correspondence with the
government, "the abominable measure," and having convoked the assembly,
addressed them thus: "Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the house of
burgesses,--I have heard of your resolves, and augur ill of their
effects. You have made it my duty to dissolve you, and you are dissolved
accordingly."

The burgesses immediately repaired in a body to the Raleigh, and
unanimously adopted a non-importation agreement, drawn by George Mason,
and presented by George Washington. The resolutions included one not to
import, or purchase any imported slaves, after the first day of
November, until the objectionable acts of parliament should be repealed.
Mr. Mason, not yet a member of the assembly, was not present at this
meeting. The moderate party in the assembly, while they had opposed
measures which appeared to them injudicious and premature, nevertheless
avowed themselves as firmly riveted to the main principle in dispute.
Their views, they averred, had been made public in the several memorials
to government; and from the position so assumed they were resolved never
to recede. They had not, indeed, expected that parliament would ever
explicitly acknowledge itself in the wrong; but it had been their hope
that the dispute would have been left to rest upon reciprocal
protestations, and finally have died away. The late measures of the
British government had extinguished such delusive hopes. That government
claimed the right of subjecting America to every act of parliament as
being part of the British dominions; and at the same time that Americans
should be liable to punishment under an act of Henry the Eighth, made to
punish offences committed _out of_ the realm. The deportation of
Americans for trial, depriving them of the right of trial by a jury of
the vicinage, appeared to be fraught with worse mischiefs than the stamp
act, in as much as life is more precious than property.[558:A]

On the 9th of May, 1769, the king had, in his speech to parliament,
re-echoed their determination to enforce the laws in every part of his
dominions. Nevertheless, on the thirteenth the Earl of Hillsborough,
secretary of state for the colonies, wrote to Botetourt, assuring him
that it was not t