On June 6, 1774, a committee of Prince William County freeholders and merchants met at the county courthouse in Dumfries in response to the recently passed Coercive Acts. Designed to clamp down on Massachusetts after the Boston Tea Party, these punitive measures raised fears in Virginia that they would soon spread to other colonies. Inspired by George Mason, the committee published a set of resolves that repudiated acts of Parliament undertaken without colonial representation, urged a ban on imports and exports, and declared that no court cases should be heard until the Acts were repealed. It was the first of thirty Virginia localities to publish resolves in 1774.