r to man. But
you surpass my hopes. I have found in you, united to these
qualities, that noble enthusiasm which impels to great deeds.

"Soldiers! The President of the United States shall be informed
of your conduct on the present occasion; and the voice of the
representatives of the American nation shall applaud your valor,
as your general now praises your ardor. The enemy is near. His
sails cover the lakes. But the brave are united; and if he finds
us contending among ourselves, it will be for the prize of valor,
and fame, its noblest reward."[4]

But in this war, as in the Revolutionary struggle, the commissioners
who concluded the terms of peace, armed with ample and authentic
evidence of the Negro's valorous services, placed him among chattel
property.

And in no State in the South were the laws more rigidly enforced
against Negroes, both free and slave, than in Louisiana. The efficient
service of the Louisiana Negro troops in the war of 1812 was applauded
on two continents at the time, but the noise of the slave marts soon
silenced the praise of the "Black heroes of the battle of New
Orleans."

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Laws of the State of New York, passed at the Thirty-eighth Session
of the Legislature, chap. xviii.

[3] Niles's Register, vol. vii. p. 205.

[4] Niles's Register, vol. vii. pp. 345, 346.

CHAPTER III.

NEGROES IN THE NAVY.

NO PROSCRIPTION AGAINST NEGROES AS SAILORS.--THEY ARE CARRIED
UPON THE ROLLS IN THE NAVY WITHOUT REGARD TO THEIR
NATIONALITY.--THEIR TREATMENT AS SAILORS.--COMMODORE PERRY'S
LETTER TO COMMODORE CHAUNCEY IN REGARD TO THE MEN SENT
HIM.--COMMODORE CHAUNCEY'S SPIRITED REPLY.--THE HEROISM OF THE
NEGRO SET FORTH IN THE PICTURE OF PERRY'S VICTORY ON LAKE
ERIE.--EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM NATHANIEL SHALER, COMMANDER OF A
PRIVATE VESSEL.--HE CITES SEVERAL INSTANCES OF THE HEROIC CONDUCT
OF NEGRO SAILORS.

It is rather a remarkable fact of history that Negroes were carried
upon the rolls of the navy without reference to their nationality.
About one tenth of the crews of the fleet that sailed to the Upper
Lakes to co-operate with Col. Croghan at Mackinac, in 1814, were
Negroes. Dr. Parsons says:--

"In 1816, I was surgeon of the 'Java,' under Commodore Perry. The
white and colored seamen messed together. About one in six or
eight were colored.

"In 1819, I was surg