South as a prisoners of war; nor has any colored man employed as a soldier of the United States been captured in the South and accounted for as a prisoners of war. To any reasonable man this glaring fact might be sufficient to show the fell purposes of the rebel authorities to countenance, if they have not directly ordered, the destruction of this class of troops whenever and wherever they unhappily fall into their power. From the nature of the case, the evidence of the proceedings in the South, when characterized by the murder of colored troops and their white officers, can hardly be expected to reach the public through the Confederate authorities, but we must look for them chiefly through indirect disclosures, such as may be found in a paragraph from a New York paper of a recent date, in the words following:

Rebel barbarity. -The following in an extract from a letter dated Port Hudson, November 3, written by a captain in the Seventh Regiment, and addressed to his father in New York:

"We have just received information of a positive character (were only had rumors before) that First Lieutenant George B. Coleman, Jr., of New York City, who was captured about two months ago while out on a raid, was hanged within twenty-four hours afterward, together with some twenty privates (colored) who were taken with him. I hope some action will be taken on the subject, and that soon. I know that the officers and soldiers of the Corps d'Afrique will take immediate and final action if they ever get into a fight. The men of the command will endeavor to protect themselves from such a fate though the Government should neglect to do it. "

The Government of the United States in authorizing the employment of colored troops for the suppression of the rebellion bound itself, and is undoubtedly under the most solemn obligation, to use its utmost power to throw over that class of troops the protection of the laws of war, and stands engaged before the world to make no compromise whatever which shall jeopardize the claim of this class of troops when captured to be treated with that humanity which is due to all other troops in like circumstances according to the laws of civilized warfare.

While we know of some individual instances in which the rebels have violated the laws of war, we do not know of a single instance in which they have respected those laws in their treatment of colored troops, and when the rebel agent of exchange offers, as he has done, to exchange all the prisoners of war in his hands against all that we have in our hands, the surplus to remain on parole, it would manifest the most stupid blindness on our part to imagine for one moment that he has ever intended to include colored troops as subject to exchange. He might say, and with verbal truth, speaking individually, that he would deliver, under certain conditions, all prisoners in his hands without intending to include this class of troops, because, by the action of the Confederate authorities, not a single man, officer, or soldier belonging to the Corps d'Afrizue has been or will be permitted to come into his hand. They have, on the contrary, when captured, been either murdered, cast into prison, or sold into slavery. They are not recognized in the South as soldiers instances serving to illustrate the spirit and purpose of the rebels in their treatment of colored troops or colored persons in the employment of the Government it may be stated that two colored men employed in the Navy who were captured near Charleston were heavily ironed and cast into prison in that city, beyond which fact we have no trace of them. We know of two free colored young men belonging to a Massachusetts regiment having been publicly sold into slavery in Texas, the price they brought under the auctioneer's hammer having been reported. We know of one case which directly illustrates