On the first of April, 1776-- ample time having elapsed, since the two Orders were made, to enable all which could be done in the way of purchases and sales of Pork and Flour, to have been done, satisfactorily to those who were originally in the secret -- the Committee of Safety discovered what it regarded as a fact, that such a Military Magazine as General Lee had called for and which the Provincial Congress had deliberately established, would " not be absolutely necessary ; " and it accordingly " Ordered, That Colonel

1 Journal of the Provincial Congress, "Die Sabbati, 9 ho., A.M., March "16, 1776."

a Journal of the Committee of Safety, " Die Lunee, * ho., P.M., March " 18, 1776."

8 Ibid.

" Gilbert Drake and the other members of West- " chester-County do not purchase any more Pro- " visions, until farther order; and that they return "' with all convenient speed to this Committee, an ac- " count of all the Provisions they have purchased, and "in what stores they are placed." 4

It required eight days for the Committee's letter and Order to reach the busy Deputies and to arrest their eager searches for Pork and Flour ; but on the eighth day, [April 9, 1776,] Colonel Drake reported that he, and John Thomas, Junior, and Major Lockwood, three of the migratory Deputies, had bought about one thousand barrels of the former and six hundred barrels of the latter ; 6 from which one may learn something of the product! veness of Colonial Westchester-county, in 1775, notwithstanding the disturbances, already referred to, to which its inhabitants had been so frequently and so seriously subjected -- the usual Autumn and Winter sales of these two staple articles had been undoubtedly made ; extraordinary sales had been made for the Northern Army and ior distant places, many of them having been made matters of official record ; the home-consumption had been supplied, freely, during the Autumn, the Winter, and the early Spring ; and the necessary supplies, also for the home-consumption, until the following Autumn, had been undoubtedly reserved ; but the supply was not exhausted ; and a thousand barrels of salted Pork and six hundred barrels of Flour had been found and purchased, on the account of the Provincial Congress, within the limited period of three weeks, and within the limits of that single County.