OF LANCASTER COUNTY. 225 



unacqnaintance with military discipline, that we should become an easy 

 prey to them, or tamely submit and bend our necks to the yoke prepared 

 for us: We do most solemnly agree and associate under the deepest 

 sense of our duty to God, our country, ourselves and posterity, to de- 

 fend and protect the religious and civil rights of this and our sister colo- 

 nies, with our lives and fortunes, to the utmost of our abilities, against 

 any power whatsoever that shall attempt to deprive us of them. 



And the better to enable us so to do, we will use our utmost diligence 

 to acquaint ourselves with military discipline and the art of war. 



We do furtlier agree to divide ourselves into companies not exceeding 

 one hundred men, each, so as to make it most convenient to our situation 

 and settlement, and to elect and choose such persons as the majority of 

 each company shall think proper for officers, viz : for each company a 

 captain, two lieutenants and one ensign, who shall have the power of 

 appointing the other officers under them, necessary for the companies. 



That when the companies are formed and the officers chosen and ap- 

 pointed, an association shall be signed by the officers and soldiers of each 

 company, for the good order and government of the officers and soldiers. 



May 3d : Eesolved, That the members of the Committee of the County 

 of Lancaster do, with the utmost expedition, take an account of the 

 number of whites — men, women and children — to the respective town- 

 ships of this county, and transmit the same to the members of the Com- 

 mittee, residing in Lancaster, to be forwarded to the members of the 

 general Congress for the province of Pennsylvania. 



Eesolved, That the members of the committee do examine the 

 quantity of powder and lead the storekeepers have in their hands, in the 

 respective townships, and that the storekeepers be required that they 

 sell no powder or lead before the first of June next, as they tender the 

 trade and custom of the inhabitants of the respective townships, provi- 

 ded that it be sold only by such storekeepers having a license from two 

 members of the Committee. 



At a meeting of the Committee of Observation, on the -ith day of 

 May, 1775, the Commissioners of the county being also present, Mr. 

 Charles Hamilton agrees, that the county shall have his powder, being 

 twenty-six casks, at the rate of £14 per cwt. and they paying the carriage; 

 and that the county shall have his lead, being about eight hundred weight, 

 at 45 pence per cwt.^ 



Messrs. Josiah and Eobert Lockhart agree that the county shall have 



1 January 32, 1774, an act was passed by the General Assembly, that no person or 

 persons within the limits of Lancaster borough, shall keep in any house or shop, cel- 

 lar, store, or other place more thantwenty-five pounds weight of gunpowder, and that 

 was to be kept in the highest story of the house, at any one time, unless it had been 

 fifty yards distant from any dwelling house, under the penalty of five pounds. 

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