Prior to the outbreak of the Revolution the militia of the Province of Massachusetts Bay was governed by the provisions of an act for regulating the militia, passed in 1693. Although quaint and antiquated in its provisions, it seems to have sufficed for all practical purposes; and no other act was passed regulating the militia until the Provincial Congress, almost at the beginning of its sittings, took steps to place the militia of the Province upon a different basis in order to find themselves prepared for the impending contest with the mother country, which at that date, October, 1774, was patent to all men as an unavoidable conflict. It may be interesting to note some of the provisions and requirements that governed the militia during the Province period under the old act referred to. The act provided that all male persons from sixteen years of age to sixty, with certain exceptions, should bear arms and duly attend all musters and military exercises of the respective troops and companies wherein they were listed, allowing three months’ time to every son, next after his coming to sixteen years of age, and to every servant for the same period after his time was out, to provide themselves with arms, ammunition, etc. It also provided that, if any person liable to be listed as aforesaid—_i.e._, as a member of any troop or company, in the precinct or town where he resided—should avoid service by shifting from house to house or place to place, to avoid being listed as a member of a troop or company, he should be fined ten shillings for every offence, the money to be paid over to the company to which he belonged. Regimental musters, except in Boston, were to be held but once in three years; but the act provided that every captain, or chief officer, of a company or troop, should draw forth his company or troop four days annually, and no more; to exercise them in motions, the use of arms, and shooting at marks, or other military exercises. The punishment for any disorders or contempt committed by any member of a company on a training day or on a watch was to be by laying neck and heels, riding the wooden horse, or ten shillings’ fine. The exemptions from training included the members of the Council, the Representatives for the time being, the Secretary, Justices of the Peace, the President, Fellows, students, and servants of Harvard College, Masters of Art, ministers, elders and deacons of churches, sheriffs, physicians, surgeons, and professed schoolmasters, all such as had held commissions and served as field officers or captains, lieutenants or ensigns; coroners, treasurers, the Attorney-General, deputy sheriffs, clerks of courts, constables, constant ferrymen, and one miller to each gristmill. In addition there were exempted officers employed in connection with the Crown Revenue service, all masters of vessels of thirty tons and upwards, constant herdsmen, persons lame or otherwise disabled in body (on production of a