George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10

[351] Carolina to raise three thousand active, able-bodied

Chap. XVII.} 1779.

negro men under thirty-five years of age; and the recommendation was coupled with a promise of ‘a full compensation to the proprietors of such negroes for the property.’ The resolution appears to have been adopted without opposition, North and South Carolina having both been represented in the committee that reported it. But South Carolina refused by great majorities to give effect to the scheme.

So long as Jefferson was in congress he kept Virginia and Massachusetts in a close and unselfish union, of which the unanimous assertion of independence was the fruit. When he withdrew to service in his native commonwealth, their friendship lost something of its disinterestedness. Virginia manifested its discontent by successive changes in its delegation, and the two great states came more and more to represent different classes of culture and ideas and interests. On observing congress thus ‘rent by party,’ Washington ‘raised his voice and called upon George Mason and Jefferson to come forth to save their country.’

In 1779, when the prosperity of New England had been shown to depend on the fisheries, and when pathetic appeals, not unmingled with menaces, had been used prodigally and without effect, Samuel Adams said rashly, that ‘it would become more and more necessary for the two empires to separate.’ On the other hand, when the north offered a preliminary resolution, that the country, even if deserted by France and Spain, would continue the war for the sake of the fisheries, we have seen four states read the draft of a protest declaring peremptorily