What is a Committee of Correspondence, and how was it like a government?

The Committees of Correspondence were the American colonies' means for maintaining communication lines in the years before the Revolutionary War. ... In 1773, the Virginia House of Burgesses proposed that each colonial legislature appoint a committee for intercolonial correspondence

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The committees of correspondence were shadow governments organized by the Patriot leaders of the Thirteen Colonies on the eve of the American Revolution. ... These served an important role in the Revolution, by disseminating the colonial interpretation of British actions between the colonies and to foreign governments.