“God is so ordering it in his providence, that it seems absolutely necessary something should speedily be done with respect to the slaves among us, in order to our safety, and to prevent their turning against us in out present struggle, in order to get their liberty.  Our oppressors have planned to gain the blacks, and induce them to take up arms against us, by promising them liberty on this condition; and this plan they are prosecuting to the utmost of their power, by which means they have persuaded numbers to join them.  And should we attempt to restrain them by force and severity, keeping a strict guard over them, and punishing them severely who shall be detected in attempting to join our opposers, this will only be making bad worse, and serve to render our inconsistence, oppression, and cruelty more criminal, perspicuous, and shocking, and bring down the righteous vengeance of Heaven on our heads.  The only way pointed out to prevent this threatening evil is to set the blacks at liberty ourselves by some public acts and laws, and then give them proper encouragement to labor, or take arms in the defence of the American cause, as they shall choose.  This would at once be doing them some degree of justice, and defeating our enemies in the scheme that they are prosecuting."[536]

On Sunday, the 24th of September, 1775, John Adams recorded the following conversation, that goes to show that Lord Dunmore’s policy was well matured:—­

“In the evening, Mr. Bullock and Mr. Houston, two gentlemen from Georgia, came into our room, and smoked and chatted the whole evening.  Houston and Adams disputed the whole time in good humor.  They are both dabs at disputation, I think.  Houston, a lawyer by trade, is one of course, and Adams is not a whit less addicted to it than the lawyers.  The question was, whether all America was not in a state of war, and whether we ought to confine ourselves to act upon the defensive only?  He was for acting offensively, next spring or this fall, if the petition was rejected or neglected.  If it was not answered, and favorably answered, he would be for acting against Britain and Britons, as, in open war, against French and Frenchmen; fit privateers, and take their ships anywhere.  These gentlemen give a melancholy account of the State of Georgia and South Carolina.  They say that if one thousand regular troops should land in Georgia, and their commander be provided with arms and clothes enough, and proclaim freedom to all the negroes who would join his camp, twenty thousand negroes would join it from the two Provinces in a fortnight.  The negroes have a wonderful art of communicating intelligence among themselves; it will run several hundreds of miles in a week or fortnight.  They say, their only security is this; that all the king’s friends, and tools of government, have large plantations, and property in negroes; so that the slaves of the Tories would be lost, as well as those of the Whigs."[537]

The Negroes in Virginia sought the standards of the ministerial army, and the greatest consternation prevailed among the planters.  On the 27th of November, 1775, Edmund Pendleton wrote to Richard Lee that the slaves were daily flocking to the British army.