Search the writers on the Law of Nations, and you will find the appeal to slaves justified. Search history, whether in ancient or modern times, and you will find it justified by example. In our Revolution, this appeal was made by three different British commanders,—Lord Dunmore, Sir Henry Clinton, and Lord Cornwallis. I do not stop for details. That their appeal was not unsuccessful is evident from concurring testimony. Its propriety was admitted by Jefferson, while describing his own individual losses from Cornwallis.
“He destroyed all my growing crops of corn and tobacco; he burned all my barns, containing the same articles of the last year, having first taken what corn he wanted; he used, as was to be expected, all my stock of cattle, sheep, and hogs, for the sustenance of his army, and carried off all the horses capable of service.… He carried off, also, about thirty slaves. Had this been to give them freedom, he would have done right.… 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’s hands, that year, about thirty thousand slaves.”[118]
It would be difficult to imagine testimony stronger. Here was a sufferer, justly indignant for himself and his State; but he does not doubt that an enemy would do right in carrying off slaves to give them freedom.
The enterprise of Lord Dunmore deserves more particular mention. His proclamation was thus explicit:—
“And I do hereby further declare all indented servants, negroes or others (appertaining to rebels), free, that are able and willing to bear arms, they joining his Majesty’s troops as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing this colony to a proper sense of their duty to his Majesty’s crown and dignity.”[119]
Its effect is amply attested. Edmund Pendleton writes to Richard Henry Lee: “Letters mention that slaves flock to him in abundance; but I hope it is magnified.”[120] Lord Dunmore reports to his Government at home: “I have been endeavoring to raise two regiments here,—one of white people, the other of black. The former goes on very slowly, but the latter very well.”[121] Nothing shows the consternation more than a letter of Washington, who, after saying that “Lord Dunmore should be instantly crushed, if it takes the force of the whole colony to do it,” proceeds:—
“Otherwise, like a snow-ball in rolling, his army will get size,—some through fear, some through promises, and some through inclination joining his standard: but that which renders the measure indispensably necessary is the negroes; for, if he gets formidable, numbers of them will be tempted to join who will be afraid to do it without.”[122]
To these authorities add the exclamation of Zubly, in the Continental Congress from Georgia:—
“I look on the plan we heard of yesterday to be vile, abominable, and infernal; but I am afraid it is practicable.”[123]