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one. But paragraph four did send one important and clear signal to the northern colonists. It demonstrated that the Virginians took northerners problems with the British seriously and were ready to make common cause with them.
    While the records of the Virginia committee of correspondence contain nothing about the
Gaspee
affair, they are full of communications congratulating Virginia for its resolution, and planning for a meeting of a Continental Congress. Even though the resolution was condemned by the British government, it received stunning support throughout the colonies. Many more resolutions were adopted by other colonies in praise and support for Virginia’s leadership.
    Massachusetts, May 27, 1773: “This House have a very grateful sense of the obligations they are under to the House of Burgesses in Virginia for the vigilance, firmness, and wisdom which they have discovered at all times in support of the rights and liberties of the American colonies, and do heartily concur with them in their said judicious and spirited resolves.”
    South Carolina, July 9, 1773: “We are firmly persuaded of the utility of the measure so seasonably proposed by the colony of Virginia and, we hope, universally adopted by the other colonies, and hope thereby to cultivate and strengthen that harmony and union among all the English colonies on the continent.”
    Delaware, October 25, 1773: “This House have a very grateful sense of the obligation they are under to the House of Burgesses in Virginia, for the vigilance, firmness, and wisdom which they have discovered at all times in support of the rights and liberties of the American colonies, and do heartily concur with them in their said judicious and spirited resolves.”
    Georgia, September 10, 1773: “The thanks of this House be transmitted to the...members of the House of Burgesses of Virginia…for communicating their intentions firmly to support the right and privileges of his Majesty’s faithful subjects.”
    Philadelphia meeting, noted by Charles Thompson, June 13, 1774: “All America looks up to Virginia to take the lead on the present occasion. Our united efforts are now necessary to ward off the impending blow leveled at our lives, liberty and property.... Some colony must step forth and appoint the time and place. None is so fit as Virginia. You are ancient. You are respected. You are animated in the cause.”
    Similar support came from six other colonies and cities including Connecticut, November 4, 1773, New York City, January 20, 1774, New Jersey, February 3, 1774, New York, March 1, 1774, Alexandria, Virginia, May 29, 1774, and North Carolina, June 24, 1774. 6
    The published records of the Virginia committee of correspondence make clear that the resolution was understood by virtually all the colonies as calling for a congress of the colonies for the purpose of countering the offending British actions. This support meant that the leadership in the other colonies was ready, once Virginia acted, to “cross the Rubicon,” and risk British displeasure that could ripen into charges of treason, by publicly supporting the Virginian’s resolution. Thus the “younger members” of the House of Burgesses learned not only that their senior members were ready to move forward, but that the other colonies were ready to join the march.
    After March, 1773, when the House of Burgesses resolution was adopted, British actions that were designed to save the East India Company from bankruptcy encouraged the colonies to unite. In the spring of 1773, Parliament approved a plan to unload seventeen shiploads of East India Company tea in the colonies. The tea scheme was a bail-out for the East India Company that sat with half a million surplus pounds of tea. The plan authorized the Company to make direct sales of cheaper tea to colonists, without the Company paying taxes, thus threatening to disrupt the Colonies’ substantial smuggling trade with the Dutch and undercutting the profit of