102 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONVENTION [1776.

be either tried by a court martial, or shall be lawfully discharged by
proper authority.

34. No officer or soldier, who shall be put in arrest or imprison-
ment, shall continue in his confinement more than eight days, or
till such time as a court martial can be conveniently assembled.

35. No officer commanding a guard, or provost martial, shall re-
fuse to receive or keep any prisoner delivered into his charge by an
officer belonging to the said forces ; the officer, at the same time,
delivering an accusation signed by himself, of the crime with which
the said prisoner is charged.

36. No officer commanding a guard, or provost martial, shall pre-
sume to release any prisoner committed to his charge, without pro-
per authority for so doing ; nor shall he suffer any prisoner to escape,
on the penalty of being punished for it as may be adjudged.

37. Every officer or provost martial, to whose charge any pris-
oner shall be committed, is hereby required, within twenty-four
hours after such commitment, or as soon as he shall be relieved
from his guard, to give in writing to the colonel or commanding offi-
cer of the prisoner, his name and crime, and the name of the officer
who committed him, on the penalty of being punished for his ne-
glect as may adjudged.

38. Whatever commissioned officer shall leave his confinement
before he is set at liberty by the officer who confined him, or by a
superior power, shall be cashiered for it.

39. Whatsoever commissioned officer shall behave in a scanda-
lous, infamous manner, such as is unbecoming the character of an
officer and gentleman, shall be discharged from the service.

40. The officer commanding the said battalion, and every officer
commanding a company not of the said battalion, shall, upon notice
given to him by the commissary of musters, assemble the battalion or
company, under his command, in the next convenient place for
their being mustered, which shall be done of the said battalion once
in six weeks at least, and of the said other forces one in ten
weeks at least.

41. Every field officer or other officer, commanding any corps,
and actually residing with it, may give furloughs to officers and
soldiers of his corps, as he shall judge to be most consistent with
the good of the service; but no officer or soldier shall be absent
above twenty days in six months; nor shall more than one officer
and two private men be absent at the same time from any one
company, excepting some extraordinary occasion shall require it.

42. At every muster, the commanding officer of the said battal-
ion then present, or the captain or commanding officer of the said