Ce livre historique peut contenir de nombreuses coquilles et du texte manquant. Les acheteurs peuvent generalement telecharger une copie gratuite scannee du livre original (sans les coquilles) aupres de l'editeur. Non reference. Non illustre. 1913 edition. Extrait: ...The recruiting laws made eligible for service "all male persons, hired servants and apprentices above the age of sixteen and under fifty,"109 but did not permit the enlistment of slaves or of servants bound to serve till thirty-one years of age.110 That free negroes were enlisted under these laws there is no room for doubt. A letter written April 24, 1783, to the governor by William Reynolds, commissary of military stores, states that James Day had been accused of "transgressing in defrauding a black soldier and through a hasty & rather unfair hearing was ordered to prison where he now lies punishing."111 In 1777 an act of Assembly designated drumming, fifing, and pioneering for the employment of the free mulattoes of the company.112 Runaway slaves pretending to be free were accepted for enlistment to an extent that demanded in 1777 an act which required of every negro a certificate from a justice of the peace that he was a free man before he could be admitted into the army.113 Some white slave-owners preferred to offer their slaves as substitutes rather than render personal service in the army. In order to induce the negroes to enlist and to get them accepted they were presented for substitutes as if they were free. When the war was over, a law was passed to make good the promise of such masters by declaring free all negroes who had served in the war, and by further providing that any such negro held as a slave could recover damages by a suit at no expense to himself.114 107 Hening, vol. v, p. 17 (1748); vol. vi, p. 533 (1755); vol. vii, p. 95 (I7S7). 108 Cf. G. H. Moore, Historical Notes on the Employment of Negroes in the American Army of the Revolution, p. 16. 1M Proceedings of...