wing letter, which
needs no explanation:

"HEADQUARTERS, Feb. 2, 1783.

"SIR:--Mr. Hobby having claimed as his property a negro man
now serving in the Massachusetts Regiment, you will please
to order a court of inquiry, consisting of five as
respectable officers as can be found in your brigade, to
examine the validity of the claim and the manner in which
the person in question came into service. Having inquired
into the matter, with all the attending circumstances, they
will report to you their opinion thereon; which you will
report to me as soon as conveniently may be.

"I am, Sir, with great respect, your most obedient servant,

"GEORGE WASHINGTON.

"P. S.--All concerned should be notified to attend.

"Brig.-Gen. Putnam."

Not only did some of the negro soldiers who fought in the American Army
receive unjust treatment at the close of the war, but those who served
under the Royal standard, also shared a fate quite different from what
they supposed it would be when the proclamations of Lord Dunmore,
Clinton and Cornwallis, were inviting them to cast their lot with the
British.

The high character of Thomas Jefferson induces me to reproduce his
letter to Dr. Gordon, or rather that portion of it which refers to the
treatment of the negroes who went with the British army. Mr. Jefferson
says:

"From an estimate I made at that time, on the best
information I could collect, I supposed the State of
Virginia lost, under Lord Cornwallis' hand, that year, about
thirty thousand slaves; and that, of these, twenty-seven
thousand died of the small-pox and camp fever; the rest were
partly sent to the West Indies, and exchanged for rum,
sugar, coffee and fruit; and partly sent to New York, from
whence they went, at the peace, either to Nova Scotia or to
England. From this last place, I believe they have lately
been sent to Africa. History will never relate the horrors
committed by the British army in the Southern States of
America."

The heroism of the negro soldier has ever been eulogized by the true
statesmen of our country, whenever the question of the American
patriots was the theme. And I find no better eulogy to pronounce upon
them than that Hon. Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, delivered in
the United States House of