" It is expected that each man furnishes himself " with a good gun and bayonet, tomahawk, knapsack " or haversack, and two bills. But those who are not " able to furnish themselves with these arms and accoutrements will be supplied at the public expense, "for the payment of which small stoppages will be " made out of their monthly pay, till the whole are "paid for; then they are to remain the property of "the men." 1
Notwithstanding all the inducements which the Provincial Congress and its various office-seeking recruiting agents could offer, however, the staid and conservative farmers of Westchester-county were slow to enlist into the Continental service -- there had been much discontentment among those who were in the service, under Colonel Holmes, in the preceding year ; 2 and on the return of those malcontents, they had undoubtedly told the story of their respective grievances to their surprised and sympathetic neighbors; besides which hindrance, the conservatism of the County had been too barbarously treated by those who were in rebellion, to permit it to extend to that "common cause" the slightest favor, while the wounds which it had thus received were yet bleeding. It was, indeed, true that Warrants had been sent with the Circular Letter, in February ; and it is undoubtedly true, also, that the favored ones, throughout the County, Warrants in hand and Offices in prospective, had employed all their powers of conciliation and persuasion to ensure
1 Journal of the Provincial Congress, •1776."