Act XLVII: No man shall go or send abroade without a sufficient party well armed. Act XLVIII: No man shall go to work in the grounds without their arms, and a sentinel upon them. Act LI: All men that are fitting to bear arms, shall bring their pieces to the church upon pain of every offence, of the mayster allow not thereof to pay 2 lb. of tobacco, to be disposed by the church-wardens, who shall levy it by distress, and the servants be punished. (The Statutes at large: being a collection of all the laws of Virginia, from the …

All men that are fitting to bear arms, shall bring their pieces to the church upon pain for every offence, if the default be in the master, to pay 2lb of tobacco, to be disposed by the church-wardens, who shall levy it by distress, and the servants shall be punished [ ] commander. (The Statutes at large: being a collection of all the laws of Virginia, from the first session of the legislature in the year 1619).

It is enacted and confirmed that masters of every family shall bring with them to church on Sundays one fixed and serviceable gun with sufficient powder and shot upon penalty of ten pound of tobacco for every master of a family so offending to be disposed of by the churchwardens who shall levy it by distress, and servants being commanded and yet omitting shall receive twenty lashes on his or their bare shoulders, by order form the county courts where he or they shall live.

I. WHEREAS it is necessary, in this time of danger, that the militia of this Colony should be well regulated and disciplined, Be it therefore enacted, by the Lieutenant-Governor, Council, and Burgesses, of this present General Assembly… that from and after the passing of this Act every … officer, bearing any commission in the militia of this Colony, shall be an inhabitant of, and resident in, the County of which he is or shall be commissioned…IV. …that every person so as aforesaid enlisted (except free mulattoes, negroes, and Indians) shall be armed in the manner following, that is to say: …