fe of
Bernard Moore, of Chelsea, in King William, daughter of a British
governor, Spotswood, according to family tradition, continued to sip her
tea in her closet after it was banished from the table.

[569:B] The name of Dunmore was, in 1777, changed to Shenandoah.

[570:A] MS. letter of William Lee, dated at London, January 1st, 1774.

CHAPTER LXXIV.

1774.

Lady Dunmore and Children--Gayety of Williamsburg--Boston Port
Bill--Fast-day appointed--Governor dissolves the Assembly--
Resolutions of Burgesses--Convention called--The Raleigh--
Mason's Opinion of Henry--Patriotic Measures--Convention--
Jefferson's "Summary View."

LATE in April there arrived at the palace in Williamsburg, the Right
Honorable the Countess of Dunmore, with George, Lord Fincastle, the
Honorable Alexander and John Murray, and the Ladies Catherine, Augusta,
and Susan Murray, accompanied by Captain Foy and his lady. On this
occasion there was an illumination, and the people with acclamations
welcomed her ladyship and family to Virginia. The three sons of Lord
Dunmore were students in the College of William and Mary in that year.

When the assembly met in May, Williamsburg presented a scene of unwonted
gayety, and a court-herald published a code of etiquette for the
regulation of the society of the little metropolis. Washington, arriving
there on the sixteenth, dined with Lord Dunmore. At the beginning of the
session the burgesses made an address congratulating the governor on the
arrival of his lady, and the members agreed to give a ball in her honor
on the twenty-seventh; but the sky was again suddenly overcast by
intelligence of the act of parliament shutting up the port of Boston.
The assembly made an indignant protest against this act, and,[572:A]
imitating the example of the Puritans in the civil wars of England, set
apart the first of June, appointed for closing the port, as a day of
fasting, prayer, and humiliation, in which the Divine interposition was
to be implored to protect the rights of the colonies, and avert the
horrors of civil war, and to unite the people of America in the common
cause.

On the next day Dunmore, summoning the burgesses to attend him in the
council chamber, dissolved them in the following words: "Mr. Speaker and
Gentlemen of the house of burgesses, I have in my hand a paper published
by order of your house, conceived in such terms as reflect highly upon
his majesty and the