How Did Lord Clinton Allow Runaways

In 1779, Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander in chief, offered freedom �to every Negro that shall desert the rebel standard.� Clinton's policy was as much practical as philanthropic. A British warning in the New York Weekly Mercury on July 5, 1779, notified blacks that any captured with the rebel forces would be sold into slavery, regardless of their legal status. But there does seem to have been a good deal of genuine humanitarian feeling among the British generals. Lord Cornwallis would not allow runaways to be taken from his camp, even when their owners were not rebels. And Sir Guy Carleton kept his word to fugitives at the end of the war during the evacuation of New York, even as the victorious Yankees clamored for the return of their