BY L. MARIA CHILD.

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.

By the unrivalled neatness and durability of his work, and by the uprightness of his character, he obtained extensive business, and for more than fifty years employed many people in his sail-loft. Being near the water, he had opportunities, at twelve different times, to save people from drowning, which he sometimes did at the risk of his own life. The Humane Society of Philadelphia presented him with an engraving, to which was appended a certificate of the number of people he had saved, and the thanks of the Society for his services. He had it framed and hung in his parlor; and when I visited him, in 1835, he pointed it out to me, and told me he would not take a thousand dollars for it. He likewise told me of a vessel engaged in the slave-trade, the owners of which applied to him for rigging. He indignantly refused; declaring that he considered such a request an insult to any honest or humane man. He always had the cause of the oppressed colored people warmly at heart, and was desirous to do everything in his power for their improvement and elevation. He early saw that colonizing free blacks to Africa would never abolish Slavery; but that, on the contrary, it tended to prolong its detestable existence. He presided at the first meeting of colored people in Philadelphia, to remonstrate against the Colonization Society. He was an earnest and liberal friend of the Anti-Slavery Society; and almost the last words he was heard to utter were expressions of love and gratitude to William Lloyd Garrison for his exertions in behalf of his oppressed race. He never drank any intoxicating liquor, and was a steadfast supporter of the Temperance Society. Being of a kindly and humane disposition, he espoused the principles of the Peace Society. His influence and pure example were also given to those who were striving against licentiousness. Indeed, he was always ready to assist in every good word and work.

He died in 1842, at the age of seventy-six years. His funeral procession was one of the largest ever seen in Philadelphia; thousands of people, of all classes and all complexions, having united in this tribute of respect to his character.