James Forten was born in 1766, nearly a hundred years ago. His ancestors had lived in Pennsylvania for several generations, and, so far as he could trace them, they had never been slaves. In his boyhood the war of the American Revolution began. The States of this Union were then colonies of Great Britain. Being taxed without being represented in the British Parliament, they remonstrated against it as an act of injustice. The king, George the Third, was a dull, obstinate man, disposed to be despotic. The loyal, respectful petitions of the Colonies were treated with indifference or contempt; and at last they resolved to become independent of England. When James Forten was about fourteen years old he entered into the service of the Colonial navy, in the ship Royal Louis, commanded by Captain Decatur, father of the celebrated commodore. It was captured by the British ship Amphion, commanded by Sir John Beezly. Sir John's son was on board, as midshipman. He was about the same age as James Forten; and when they played games together on the deck, the agility and skill of the brown lad attracted his attention. They became much attached to each other; and the young Englishman offered to provide for the education of his colored companion, and to help him on in the world, if he would go to London with him. But James preferred to remain in the service of his native country. The lads shed tears at parting, and Sir John's son obtained a promise from his father that his friend should not be enlisted in the British army. This was a great relief to the mind of James; for his sympathies were on the side of the American Colonies, and he knew that colored men in his circumstances were often carried to the West Indies and sold into Slavery. He was transferred to the prison-ship Old Jersey, then lying near New York. He remained there, through a raging pestilence on board, until prisoners were exchanged. After the war was over, he obtained employment in a sail-loft in Philadelphia, where he soon established a good character by his intelligence, honesty, and industry. He invented an improvement in the management of sails, for which he obtained a patent. As it came into general use, it brought him a good deal of money. In process of time, he became owner of the sail-loft, and also of a good house in the city. He married a worthy woman, and they brought up a family of eight children. But though he had served his country faithfully in his youth, though he had earned a hundred thousand dollars by his ingenuity and diligence, and though his character rendered him an ornament to the Episcopal Church, to which he belonged, yet so strong was the mean and cruel prejudice against his color, that his family were excluded from schools where the most ignorant and vicious whites could place their children. He overcame this obstacle, at great expense, by hiring private teachers in various branches of education.