The slavery imported and grafted on this country by foreign political supremacy, when the country was helpless, has been subjected to a trial never undergone by such an institution in any other part of the world. An enemy held dominion where slavery existed, and while the masters were called upon to fight for their own political independence, there was opportunity for the slave to revolt or escape if such had been his wish. Those who are not acquainted with the ties uniting the slave to his master’s household, and the interest he feels in his master’s welfare, would expect that when a hostile army was present to rescue and to defend them, the whole slave population would rise with eager fury to avenge their subjection, or with eager hope to escape from it. But the historical truth is, that very few indeed of the colored men of the United States, whether slaves or free, joined the English or Tory party in the Revolutionary War. Thus the character impressed on the institution frustrated the recorded expectation of those who forced this evil upon a reluctant people--that the position and the influence of the negro in society would forever check republican spirit and keep the country in dependence. The small number of colored persons who did join the English produced no slight difficulty. That small number ought perhaps to have been easily amalgamated somehow or other with the vast amount of the English population. That this did not happen, and did not seem possible, is perfectly evident. Either color, or character, or position, or something else, which it is for the English people to explain, prevented this. Many of them were found in the lanes and dens of vice in London, without the prospect of their ever amalgamating with the Londoners, and therefore only combining incumbrance, nuisance, and danger by their presence there. This condition of things, as is well known, excited the attention and sympathy of Granville Sharpe, and led to the foundation of the colony of Sierra Leone, as a refuge for them. Great Britain found herself hampered on a subsequent occasion with the charge of a few hundreds of the Maroons, or independent free negroes of Jamaica. It was known that it would not answer to intermingle them with the slave population of that island. The public good was found imperiously to require that they should be removed elsewhere. They afterwards constituted the most trustworthy portion of the population of Sierra Leone.