“We have resolved to raise, immediately, seven hundred and
     fifty negroes, to be incorporated with the other troops; and
     a bill is now almost completed."[558]

The legislature of New York, on the 20th of March, 1781, passed the following Act, providing for the raising of two regiments of blacks:—­

“SECT. 6.—­And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that any person who shall deliver one or more of his or her able-bodied male slaves to any warrant officer, as afore said, to serve in either of the said regiments or independent corps, and produce a certificate thereof, signed by any person authorized to muster and receive the men to be raised by virtue of this act, and produce such certificate to the Surveyor-General, shall, for every male slave so entered and mustered as aforesaid, be entitled to the location and grant of one right, in manner as in and by this act is directed; and shall be, and hereby is, discharged from any future maintenance of such slave, any law to the contrary notwithstanding:  And such slave so entered as aforesaid, who shall serve for the term of three years or until regularly discharged, shall, immediately after such service or discharge, be, and is hereby declared to be, a free man of this State."[559]

The theatre of the war was now transferred from the Eastern to the Middle and Southern colonies.  Massachusetts alone had furnished, and placed in the field, 67,907 men; while all the colonies south of Pennsylvania, put together, had furnished but 50,493,—­or 8,414 less than the single colony of Massachusetts.[560] It was a difficult task to get the whites to enlist at the South.  Up to 1779, nearly all the Negro soldiers had been confined to the New-England colonies.  The enemy soon found out that the Southern colonies were poorly protected, and thither he moved.  The Hon. Henry Laurens of South Carolina, an intelligent and observing patriot, wrote Gen. Washington on the 16th of March, 1779, concerning the situation at the South:—­

“Our affairs [he wrote] in the Southern department are more favorable than we had considered them a few days ago; nevertheless, the country is greatly distressed, and will be more so unless further reinforcements are sent to its relief.  Had we arms for three thousand such black men as I could select in Carolina, I should have no doubt of success in driving the British out of Georgia, and subduing East Florida, before the end of July."[561]

Gen. Washington sent the following conservative reply:—­

“The policy of our arming slaves is in my opinion a moot point, unless the enemy set the example.  For, should we begin to form battalions of them, I have not the smallest doubt, if the war is to be prosecuted, of their following us in it, and justifying the measure upon our own ground.  The contest then must be, who can arm fastest.  And where are our arms?