of the peace for the county wherein he resides that
he is a free man."[557]

Maryland employed Negroes as soldiers, and sent them into regiments
with white soldiers. John Cadwalder of Annapolis, wrote Gen.
Washington on the 5th of June, 1781, in reference to Negro soldiers,
as follows:--

"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