“In May, 1777, the General Assembly of Connecticut appointed a Committee ’to take into consideration the state and condition of the negro and mulatto slaves in this State, and what may be done for their emancipation.’  This Committee, in a report presented at the same session (signed by the chairman, the Hon. Matthew Griswold of Lyme), recommended—­

“’That the effective negro and mulatto slaves be allowed to enlist with the Continental battalions now raising in this State, under the following regulations and restrictions; viz., that all such negro and mulatto slaves as can procure, either by bounty, hire, or in any other way, such a sum to be paid to their masters as such negro or mulatto shall be judged to be reasonably worth by the selectmen of the town where such negro or mulatto belongs, shall be allowed to enlist into either of said battalions, and shall thereupon be, de facto, free and emancipated; and that the master of such negro or mulutto shall be exempted from the support and maintenance of such negro or mulatto, in case such negro or mulatto shall hereafter become unable to support and maintain himself.

“’And that, in case any such negro or mulatto slave shall be disposed to enlist into either of said battalions during the [war], he shall be allowed so to do:  and such negro or mulatto shall be appraised by the selectmen of the town to which he belongs, and his master shall be allowed to receive the bounty to which such slave may be entitled and also one-half of the annual wages of such slave during the time he shall continue in said service; provided, however, that said master shall not be allowed to receive such part of said wages after he shall have received so much as amounts, together with the bounty, to the sum at which he was appraised.’”

In the lower house the report was put over to the next session, but when it reached the upper house it was rejected.

“You will see by the Report of Committee, May, 1777, that General Varnum’s plan for the enlistment of slaves had been anticipated in Connecticut; with this difference, that Rhode Island adopted it, while Connecticut did not.

“The two States reached nearly the same results by different methods.  The unanimous declaration of the officers at Cambridge, in the winter of 1775, against the enlistment of slaves,—­confirmed by the Committee of Congress,—­had some weight, I think, with the Connecticut Assembly, so far as the formal enactment of a law authorized such enlistments was in question.  At the same time, Washington’s license to continue the enlistment of negroes was regarded as a rule of action both by the selectmen in making up, and by the State Government in accepting, the quota of the towns.  The process of draughting, in Connecticut, was briefly this:  The able-bodied men, in each town, were divided into ‘classes:’