YORK PASSES AN ACT PROVIDING FOR THE
     RAISING OF TWO COLORED REGIMENTS.—­WAR IN THE MIDDLE AND
     SOUTHERN COLONIES.—­HAMILTON’S LETTER TO JOHN JAY.—­COL. 
     LAURENS’S EFFORTS TO RAISE NEGRO TROOPS IN SOUTH
     CAROLINA.—­PROCLAMATION OF SIR HENRY CLINTON INDUCING
     NEGROES TO DESERT THE REBEL ARMY.—­LORD CORNWALLIS ISSUES A
     PROCLAMATION OFFERING PROTECTION TO ALL NEGROES SEEKING HIS
     COMMAND.—­COL.  LAURENS IS CALLED TO FRANCE ON IMPORTANT
     BUSINESS.—­HIS PLAN FOR SECURING BLACK LEVIES FOR THE SOUTH
     UPON HIS RETURN.—­HIS LETTERS TO GEN.  WASHINGTON IN REGARD
     TO HIS FRUITLESS PLANS.—­CAPT.  DAVID HUMPHREYS RECRUITS A
     COMPANY OF COLORED INFANTRY IN CONNECTICUT.—­RETURN OF
     NEGROES IN THE ARMY IN 1778.

The policy of arming the Negroes early claimed the anxious consideration of the leaders of the colonial army during the American Revolution.  England had been crowding her American plantations with slaves at a fearful rate; and, when hostilities actually began, it was difficult to tell whether the American army or the ministerial army would be able to secure the Negroes as allies.  In 1715 the royal governors of the colonies gave the Board of Trade the number of the Negroes in their respective colonies.  The slave population was as follows:—­

NEGROES. |                        NEGROES. 
New Hampshire                  150 |Maryland                   9,500
Massachusetts                2,000 |Virginia                  23,000
Rhode Island                   500 |North Carolina             3,700
Connecticut                  1,500 |South Carolina            10,500
New York                     4,000 |                          ------
New Jersey                   1,500 |    Total                 58,850
Pennsylvania and Delaware    2,500 |

Sixty years afterwards, when the Revolution had begun, the slave population of the thirteen colonies was as follows:—­

NEGROES. |                        NEGROES. 
Massachusetts                3,500 |Maryland                  80,000
Rhode Island                 4,373 |Virginia                 165,000
Connecticut                  5,000 |North Carolina            75,000
New Hampshire                  629 |South Carolina           110,000
New York                    15,000 |Georgia                   16,000
New Jersey                   7,600 |                         -------
Pennsylvania                10,000 |    Total                501,102
Delaware                     9,000 |

Such a host of beings was not to be despised in a great military struggle.  Regarded as a neutral element that could be used simply to feed an army, to perform fatigue duty, and build fortifications, the Negro population was the object of fawning favors of the white colonists.  In the NON-IMPORTATION COVENANT, passed by the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, on the 24th of October, 1774, the second resolve indicated the feeling of the representatives of the people on the question of the slave-trade:—­