“Word of what the Patriots did in Boston spread quickly through the Colonies—and reached London shortly after Christmas. Immediately after the holiday, Parliament convened ‘in emergency session’ and decided they must suppress any further ‘criminal violence’ with far more stringent measures than those already in force.

“Lieutenant General Thomas Gage—you remember, he was a Lieutenant Colonel with Braddock, Morgan, and your father in the disaster on the Monongahela in 1755—was summoned to Parliament to provide advice on what to do. Gage suggested a draconian prescription and Frederick, Lord North, the prime minister, and a favorite of King George III, accepted the recommendations.

“Since General Gage came up with the plan, he was given the privilege of implementing it. Gage was ordered to prepare 2,000 fresh troops for deployment to Boston and told he would replace Thomas Hutchinson as Royal Governor of Massachusetts Colony when he arrived. He was also given the authority to impose martial law if he deemed it necessary.

“On 13 May 1774 when General Gage arrived in Boston aboard HMS Lively, a twenty-gun British warship, he came armed with the additional soldiers and extraordinary punitive powers authorized by Parliament. His mission was to bring Massachusetts Colony and the rest of us ‘to heel’ like you did with your hunting dog earlier.

“The new General-Governor didn’t waste any time carrying out Parliament’s wishes. In London they called these measures ‘Coercive Acts.’ Here in the Colonies we called them ‘The Intolerable Acts.’ But no matter their name, General Gage in Boston—and Lord Dunmore—here in Virginia—carried out King George’s orders with zeal worthy of a despot’s acclaim.

“Gage immediately enforced the Boston Port Act—completely closing the port of Boston to all commercial shipping and placing the harbor under martial law. A week later, on May 20, the elected Massachusetts colonial government—which traced its lineage to the 1690s—was abolished by an edict issued by General Gage.

“On the same day—in what London cynically called the ‘Administration of Justice Act,’ all British authorities were exempted from prosecution in colonial courts. And two weeks later—on June 2nd, the Quartering Act made it mandatory for colonists to pay all costs for billeting and feeding British soldiers whether in their barracks or housed in private homes.

“Here in Virginia, Lord Dunmore wanted the House of Burgesses to act on funding his plan for a military campaign against the Indians in the Ohio Valley. Instead, the oldest elected legislative assembly in this hemisphere—dating back to 1619—began debating resolutions opposing the Crown’s tax and regulatory authority. The Governor simply dismissed them from their annual session and locked them out of their chamber.

“Instead of leaving Williamsburg for home, the Burgesses reconvened at Raleigh Tavern and, among other things, selected from their number seven members to represent Virginia at the Continental Congress, which convened in Philadelphia last September.5 Are you following me on all this?”