382 HISTORY OF 



are requested to communicate the enclosed papers to the 

 other gentlemen of the committee. 



Those gentlemen named and appointed at the meeting 

 of the 9th July last, did attend the provincial convention 

 at Philadelphia, on Monday the 15th then next. And 

 the proceedings together Avith the resolves of that provin- 

 <;ial committee, hath been inserted in the public papers. 



At a meeting of the committee August 11th, they were 

 informed that Joshua and Robert Lockharts, of this 

 borough, shopkeepers, had brought to this town a 

 quantity of tea, that hath paid duty under the late act of 

 parliament. A note was therefore sent to them by the 

 committee requiring their immediate attendance. In 

 consequence thereof one of the partners called on the 

 committee, but denied their having received any tea, but 

 as this account by no means appeared satisfactory from 

 several matters which escaped the partner attending, the 

 committee did inspect their shop, and with some diffi- 

 culty learned of a chest of Bohea tea, weight 349 

 neat weight which they had bought from a certain 

 merchant in Philadelphia. The committee taking an 

 account of all the marks of the case in which it was 

 packed, removed the tea, and wrote to the committee of 

 Philadelphia, who examined the matter, and it appeareth 

 that this tea never had paid any duty, but was part of a 

 seizure made by the Custom house and was afterwads 

 purchased at public sale by the original owner of it, as by 

 a letter from the committee of Philadelphia, dated 

 August 25th, wrote and signed by the Honorable 

 Thomas Willing, the chairman, directed to this committee, 

 appears ; upon which, the said teas were returned again, 

 and the said Lockharts were acquitted. 



The Continental Congress held at Philadelphia, the 5th 

 of September, 1774, continued to the 25th of October^ 



