and each class was required to furnish one or more men, as the town’s quota required, to answer a draught.  Now, the Assembly, at the same session at which the proposition for enlisting slaves was rejected (May, 1777), passed an act providing that any two men belonging to this State, ’who should procure an able-bodied soldier or recruit to enlist into either of the Continental battalions to be raised from this State,’ should themselves be exempted from draught during the continuance of such enlistment.  Of recruits or draughted men thus furnished, neither the selectmen nor commanding officers questioned the color or the civil status:  white and black, bond and free, if ‘able-bodied,’ went on the roll together, accepted as the representatives of their ‘class,’ or as substitutes for their employers.  At the next session (October, 1777), an act was passed which gave more direct encouragement to the enlistment of slaves.  By this existing law, the master who emancipated a slave was not released from the liability to provide for his support.  This law was now so amended, as to authorize the selectmen of any town, on the application of the master,—­after ’inquiry into the age, abilities, circumstances, and character’ of the servant or slave, and being satisfied ’that it was likely to be consistent with his real advantage, and that it was probable that he would be able to support himself,’—­to grant liberty for his emancipation, and to discharge the master ’from any charge or cost which may be occasioned by maintaining or supporting the servant or slave made free as aforesaid.’  This enactment enabled the selectmen to offer an additional inducement to enlistment for making up the quota of the town.  The slave (or servant for term of years) might receive his freedom; the master might secure exemption from draught, and a discharge from future liabilities, to which he must otherwise have been subjected.  In point of fact, some hundreds of blacks—­slaves and freemen—­were enlisted, from time to time, in the regiments of the State troops and of the Connecticut line. How many, it is impossible to tell:  for, from first to last, the company or regimental rolls indicate no distinctions of color.  The name is the only guide, and, in turning over the rolls of the Connecticut line, the frequent recurrence of names which were exclusively appropriated to negroes and slaves, shows how considerable was their proportion of the material of the Connecticut army; while such surnames as ‘Liberty.’  ‘Freeman,’ ‘Freedom,’ &c, by scores, indicate with what anticipations, and under what inducements, they entered the service.

As to the efficiency of the service they rendered, I can say nothing from the records, except what is to be gleaned from scattered files such as one of the petitions I send you.  So far as my acquaintance extends, almost every family has its traditions of the good and faithful service of a black servant or slave, who was killed in