mouth, with a verj- important change, which permitted those who were not resident* of the Districts or Beats to take and to hold offices therein, that Report was included in an elaborate " AJi/ifia Bill." which provided tiiat every portion of the Colony should be divided into ''Districts or Beats,' in such manner that each of those Districts should include, as nearly as possible, eighty-three men and boys, between sixteen and sixty years of age, and capable of bearing arms. These Companies were to be commanded by Officers to be elected by the respective Companies, and commissioned by the Provincial Congress. One fourth of the entire force was to be organized as Minute-men; the Companies were to be organized into Regiments ; the Regiments were to be organized into Brigades ; and all were to be commanded by a Major-general, to be appointed and commissioned by the Provincial Congress. Provisions were also made requiring every man, between the ages of sixteen " and fifty," to provide liiinself with a musket and bayonet, a sword or tomahawk, a cartridge-box to contain twenty-three rounds of cartridges, a knapsack, one pound of gunpowder, and three pounds of balls; and various other provisions, fur the government of the Militia, were also enacted.'

There does not appear to have been much discontent, in any part of the Colony, because of the passage of that Ordinance or Act for the re-organization of the Militia ; but it atlbrded opjiortunities, in various places, for displays of that coiitenipi for the unfranchised and lowly masses, which those of higher social and political rank, even those who were ostentatiously assuming to be the especial guardians and defenders of the Rights of the Colonists, were not slow in presenting to the world. A notable instance of this contempt was seen at Yonkers, where Frederick Van C()rtlandt, an unprovided-for member of that extended family, aspired to the command of the Company in that Beat, probably as a stepping-stone to something better.