ready, well equipped with arms and
ammunition, with clothing sufficient to stand them through
the campaign, their wages to be paid monthly, so as not to
give the soldiery so much reason of complaint as it is the
general cry from the soldiery amongst whom I am connected.

"We have accounts of large re-enforcements a-coming over
this spring against us; and we are not so strong this
spring, I think, as we were last. Great numbers have
deserted; numbers have died, besides what is sick, and
incapable of duty, or bearing arms in the field.

"I think it is highly necessary that some new augmentation
should be added to the army this summer,--all the
re-enforcements that can possibly be obtained. For now is
the time to exert ourselves or never; for, if the enemy can
get no further hold this campaign than they now possess, we
[have] no need to fear much from them hereafter.

"A re-enforcement can quick be raised of two or three
hundred men. Will your honors grant the liberty, and give me
the command of the party? And what I refer to is negroes. We
have divers of them in our service, mixed with white men.
But I think it would be more proper to raise a body by
themselves, than to have them intermixed with the white men;
and their ambition would entirely be to outdo the white men
in every measure that the fortune of war calls a soldier to
endure. And I could rely with dependence upon them in the
field of battle, or to any post that I was sent to defend
with them; and they would think themselves happy could they
gain their freedom by bearing a part of subduing the enemy
that is invading our land, and clear a peaceful inheritance
for their masters, and posterity yet to come, that they are
now slaves to.

"The method that I would point out to your Honors in raising
a detachment of negroes;--that a company should consist of a
hundred, including commissioned officers; and that the
commissioned officers should be white, and consist of one
captain, one captain-lieutenant, two second lieutenants; the
orderly sergeant white; and that there should be three
sergeants black, four corporals black, two drums and two
fifes black, and eighty-four rank and file. These should
engage to serve till the end of the war, and then be free
men. And I dou