ngage to take those battalions into Continental pay.

"It appears to me, that an expedient of this kind, in the
present state of Southern affairs, is the most rational that
can be adopted, and promises very important advantages.
Indeed, I hardly see how a sufficient force can be collected
in that quarter without it; and the enemy's operations there
are growing infinitely more serious and formidable. I have
not the least doubt that the negroes will make very
excellent soldiers with proper management; and I will
venture to pronounce, that they cannot be put into better
hands than those of Mr. Laurens. He has all the zeal,
intelligence, enterprise, and every other qualification,
necessary to succeed in such an undertaking. It is a maxim
with some great military judges, that, with sensible
officers, soldiers can hardly be too stupid; and, on this
principle, it is thought that the Russians would make the
best troops in the world, it they were under other officers
than their own. The King of Prussia is among the number who
maintain this doctrine; and has a very emphatic saying on
the occasion, which I do not exactly recollect. I mention
this because I hear it frequently objected to the scheme of
embodying negroes, that they are too stupid to make
soldiers. This is so far from appearing to me a valid
objection, that I think their want of cultivation (for their
natural faculties are probably as good as ours), joined to
that habit of subordination which they acquire from a life
of servitude, will make them sooner become soldiers than our
white inhabitants. Let officers be men of sense and
sentiment; and the nearer the soldiers approach to machines,
perhaps the better.

"I foresee that this project will have to combat much
opposition from prejudice and self-interest. The contempt we
have been taught to entertain for the blacks makes us fancy
many things that are founded neither in reason nor
experience; and an unwillingness to part with property of so
valuable a kind will furnish a thousand arguments to show
the impracticability or pernicious tendency of a scheme
which requires such a sacrifice. But it should be
considered, that, if we do not make use of them in this way,
the enemy probably will; and that the best way to
counter