importation agreement, it was resolved, in a meeting of
merchants, to import every thing but tea. This resolve was also entered
into by the Philadelphian merchants, and great efforts were made by the
leaders of the movement, to induce the people to adhere strictly to
this agreement, until the tea duty should be repealed. But most of
the provinces were not desirous of persevering in the quarrel, and
consequently renewed their commercial intercourse with the mother
country: orders came over to England, indeed, to such an extent, that
our exports to the colonies in this and the following year exceeded
in amount what they had ever been before. Still the progress of a
revolution was not impeded. There were many zealots in America, who
could not rest satisfied while a connexion subsisted between England
and her colonies, and who were still busied in sowing the seeds of
discontent. Some such zealots existed in every colony, but it was in New
England and in Virginia that that they were chiefly to be found. In the
great southern province they were headed by Patrick Henry and Thomas
Jefferson, and by their means the popular party in Virginia were led to
deplore the massacre at Boston, and to uphold that city as a new Sparta
and the seat of liberty. The assembly of Virginia, in a petition
or remonstrance to his majesty, ventured to express their strong
dissatisfaction at Lord North's imperfect Repeal Act, and their deep
affliction at seeing that the pretension of the mother country to the
right of taxing the colonies was persevered in by the retention of duty
upon tea. They also criticised the conduct of Lord Bottetourt, their
governor, and represented that no alliance was to be placed upon the
good-will or moderation of those who managed the affairs of the mother
country. All the houses of assembly, now re-opened, were, in truth,
scarcely less difficult to manage than they had been the year before,
and in almost every instance they were prorogued by the governors. In
the assembly of Massachusets, especially, there were great commotions,
arising partly from communications received from England, which
represented that the state and conduct of the colony was likely to be
submitted to the consideration of parliament in the present session, and
partly from the dismissal of the provincial forces from Castle William,
and the establishment of the royal troops in that fortress. It was
suspected that measures were in train to reduce the prov