entlemen
from Georgia, came into our room, and smoked and chatted the
whole evening. Houston and Adams disputed the whole time in
good humor. They are both dabs at disputation, I think.
Houston, a lawyer by trade, is one of course, and Adams is
not a whit less addicted to it than the lawyers. The
question was, whether all America was not in a state of war,
and whether we ought to confine ourselves to act upon the
defensive only? He was for acting offensively, next spring
or this fall, if the petition was rejected or neglected. If
it was not answered, and favorably answered, he would be for
acting against Britain and Britons, as, in open war, against
French and Frenchmen; fit privateers, and take their ships
anywhere. These gentlemen give a melancholy account of the
State of Georgia and South Carolina. They say that if one
thousand regular troops should land in Georgia, and their
commander be provided with arms and clothes enough, and
proclaim freedom to all the negroes who would join his camp,
twenty thousand negroes would join it from the two Provinces
in a fortnight. The negroes have a wonderful art of
communicating intelligence among themselves; it will run
several hundreds of miles in a week or fortnight. They say,
their only security is this; that all the king's friends,
and tools of government, have large plantations, and
property in negroes; so that the slaves of the Tories would
be lost, as well as those of the Whigs."[537]

The Negroes in Virginia sought the standards of the ministerial army,
and the greatest consternation prevailed among the planters. On the
27th of November, 1775, Edmund Pendleton wrote to Richard Lee that the
slaves were daily flocking to the British army.

"The Governour, hearing of this, marched out with three
hundred and fifty soldiers, Tories and slaves, to Kemp's
Landing, and after setting up his standard, and issuing his
proclamation, declaring all persons Rebels who took up arms
for the country, and inviting all slaves, servants, and
apprentices to come to him and receive arms, he proceeded to
intercept Hutchings and his party, upon whom he came by
surprise, but received, it seems, so warm a fire, that the
ragamuffins gave way. They were, however, rallied on
discovering that two companies of our militia gave