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Committees of this name had existed in some of the colonial Legislatures much before the Revolution, e.g. in Pennsylvania from 1744 on. Their object was to keep up correspondence with the agents of the colonies in England. But this gave only a name to the famous Revolutionary committees. In a Boston town meeting of November, 1772, Samuel Adams moved that a "Committee of correspondence " be appointed to state the rights of the colonists and correspond with the other provinces and towns of New England. Their proceedings were to be secret. The system resulted in a union of the colonies and fostered the germs of revolution. About eight}' towns in Massachusetts responded promptly, and the plan worked admirably. In the Virginia Legislature similar committees, but intercolonial, were proposed in March, 1773, by Dabney Carr, and were eloquently advocated by Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee. The resolutions finally adopted were more comprehensive, and calculated to form the Confederacy, than those of Massachusetts.