offices upstairs. Revolution Many of the events leading up to and surrounding the Revolution in Rhode Island centered on the Colony House. In 1761, news of the death of King George II and his succession by his grandson George III was announced from the balcony. Three years later, the inaugural board meeting of the Corporation of the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island, which became Brown University, took place in the building. In 1765, Newport's citizens gathered around to celebrate the repeal of the Stamp Act, which led to riots that damaged the houses of three prominent supporters of the Act, including the nearby Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House, an NHL which is today the oldest house in the city. Tensions between the colonies and Britain continued to grow, leading to the Gaspée Affair of 1772, in which a ship of the Royal Navy was burned off present-day Warwick by colonists resisting the enforcement of the Navigation Acts. The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the incident was convened at Colony House the following year. Although it could have sent any suspects to London to face trial before an Admiralty court, a provision which greatly concerned most colonists, it found insufficient evidence to prosecute anyone. The incident further galvanized colonial opposition to British rule. The colony's General Assembly began preparing for war, and ordered that weapons be stored in Colony House in 1774. Two years later, the Declaration of Independence was read from the front steps. The British occupied Newport, then the colonial capital, later that year. During that time the building was used as a barracks. When the French joined the war later and drove the British out of the city, they used the building as a hospital. It is widely believed that a French Army chaplain celebrated Rhode Island's first Roman Catholic Mass at Colony House during this period, but no evidence has been found of this. After the surrender at Yorktown, in 1782, Rochambeau held a banquet in the building's first-floor Great Hall to honor George Washington. A portrait of Washington, painted by Rhode Island native Gilbert Stuart, hangs in the first floor. In 1786 Trevett v. Weeden one of the earliest cases of judicial review was decided in the building by the Rhode Island Supreme Court. James Mitchell Varnum successfully represented the defendant in the cause. 1842 Constitutional convention In September 1842, delegates met at Colony House to