" Precinct, or District where the offender shall have " been taken up ; and if, upon examination, the sus- " picion shall appear to the said Committee to be "groundless, that he be discharged: Provided, "also, that no person charged to be an offender " shall be tried upon any of the foregoing Resolves, " until the persons to be Judges of the offence be " first severally sworn to try and adjudge the person " so charged, without partiality, favour, or affection, " or hope of reward, according to evidence ; and that " every witness who shall be examined on such trial "shall have the. charge distinctly and clearly stated "to him ; and be thereupon sworn to speak the truth, " the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." ' *******

It will be seen that, by this remarkable enactment, every person in the Colony was placed at the mercy of the local Committee of the County in which he lived ; that no one was permitted to disregard or to treat with disrespect either the " recommendations " or the " Resolutions " of Congresses or Committees, of either high or low degree, no matter with what disclaimers of obligation those "recommendations" and "Resolutions" might have been accompanied,^ nor to dissent from whatever outrages on persons or properties there might be inflicted on quiet, lawabiding persons, by even the most insignificant "District Committee" in the Colony, nor even to question the authority to do whatever it should incline to do, no matter how monstrous its actions should be, in any such Congress or Committee; that sequestration, if not confiscation and absolute sale,^ of properties, real and persiuial, and close confinement in barracks or jails, and banishment from home and family, no matter at what cost to him or to those who were dependent on him, were penalties to which every one was subject, whenever a County Committee saw fit to indict them ; that, by making the offences and the penalties matters of general interest to " the associa- " ted Colonies " -- for doing which no one can pretend that a local Provincial Congress, even during a Rebellion, could consistently assume to legislate -- this enactment afforded a warrant for inroads from other Colonics, whenever the latter were inclined to make them, for the direct adjustment of matters in which