74 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONVENTION [1776.

officers desire to have their commissions. That no minute com-
panies be continued beyond the first day of March next, and that
a sum of money sufficient for the purpose, be lodged in the hands
of the committee of observation in each respective county where
a company of minute men hath been enrolled, viewed, and allow-
ed, to pay and discharge the expense of such company for the
time past, and also for the time to come, if such company contin-
ues till the first day of March next, and that such committee re-
ceive the rolls of such companies, and the times of the attendance
of the men, proved by the oath of some one at least of the com-
missioned officers, return the balance of the money, if any, into
the public treasury, and render an account of their transactions
herein to the next convention; but no person chosen for a com-
missioned officer in any company of minute men, shall be compel-
lable to serve in the militia in a lower rank or station than he was
elected to in the minute company.

That all public arms in the hands of the minute men, immedi-
ately after the first day of March next, or as soon as they disband
where they disband sooner, be delivered to the committee of obser-
vation for their respective county, to be by the said committee kept
and preserved for the public use.

That every able bodied effective freeman within this province,
between sixteen and fifty years of age, (clergymen of all de-
nominations, practising physicians, and the household of his ex-
cellency the governor, excepted,) who hath not already enrolled
himself in the militia, shall, on or before the first day of March,
next, enroll himself in some company of militia, agreeable to the
form of the enrollment prescribed by the last convention, and that
every minute or artillery man, except commissioned officers, shall
in like manner enroll in the militia, within one month next after he
shall cease to act as a minute or artillery man. And if any able bo-
died effective freeman shall refuse or delay to enroll himself in the
militia as aforesaid, every such person shall pay for the present
year, which shall be reckoned from the fifteenth day of September
last, such sum of money, not less than forty shillings nor more than
ten pounds, as shall be assessed by the committee of observation of
his county, for the use of the public. And the committee of observa-
tion in each respective county shall, by warrant under their hands,
appoint and empower any person or persons they shall judge proper,
to collect and receive all monies by them so assessed, which shall
be paid within one month after notice of such assessment, and in
default thereof, the person or persons so empowered, may distrain
the goods and effects of the defaulters, and sell and dispose of the