council of Washington and his generals on October 8 "agreed unanimously
to reject all slaves, and, by a great majority, to reject Negroes
altogether," and in his general orders of November 12 Washington acted
on this understanding. Meanwhile, however, Lord Dunmore issued his
proclamation declaring free those indentured servants and Negroes who
would join the English army, and in great numbers the slaves in Virginia
flocked to the British standard. Then on December 14--somewhat to the
amusement of both the Negroes and the English--the Virginia Convention
issued a proclamation offering pardon to those slaves who returned to
their duty within ten days. On December 30 Washington gave instructions
for the enlistment of free Negroes, promising later to lay the matter
before Congress; and a congressional committee on January 16, 1776,
reported that those free Negroes who had already served faithfully in
the army at Cambridge might reënlist but no others, the debate in this
connection having drawn very sharply the line between the North and the
South. Henceforth for all practical purposes the matter was left in the
hands of the individual colonies. Massachusetts on January 6, 1777,
passed a resolution drafting every seventh man to complete her quota
"without any exception, save the people called Quakers," and this was as
near as she came at any time in the war to the formal recognition of the
Negro. The Rhode Island Assembly in 1778 resolved to raise a regiment
of slaves, who were to be freed at enlistment, their owners in no case
being paid more than £120. In the Battle of Rhode Island August 29,
1778, the Negro regiment under Colonel Greene distinguished itself by
deeds of desperate valor, repelling three times the assaults of an
overwhelming force of Hessian troops. A little later, when Greene was
about to be murdered, some of these same soldiers had to be cut to
pieces before he could be secured. Maryland employed Negroes as soldiers
and sent them into regiments along with white men, and it is to be
remembered that at the time the Negro population of Maryland was