Hessians in the Rev. War - Chapters I-IV



CHAPTER I.
THE PRINCES.

The little city of Cassel is one of the most attractive in North Germany 
to a passing stranger. Its galleries, its parks and gardens, and its great 
palaces are calculated to excite admiration and surprise. Here Napoleon 
III spent the months of his captivity amid scenes which might remind him 
of the magnificence of Versailles, which, indeed, those who planned the 
beautiful gardens had wished to imitate. For the grounds were mostly laid 
out and the buildings mainly constructed in the last century, when the 
court of France was the point towards which most princely eyes on the 
Continent were directed; and no court, perhaps, followed more assiduously 
or more closely, in outward show at least, in the path of the French court 
than that of the Landgraves of Hesse-Cassel. The expense of all these 
buildings and gardens was enormous, but there was generally money in the 
treasury. Yet the land was a poor land. The three or four hundred thousand 
inhabitants lived chiefly by the plough, but the Landgraves were in 
business. It was a profitable trade that they carried on, selling or 
letting out wares which were much in demand in that century, as in all 
centuries, for the Landgraves of Hesse-Cassel were dealers in men; thus it 
came to pass that Landgrave Frederick II and his subjects played a part in 
American history, and that "Hessian" became a household word, though not a 
title of honor, in the United States.

The Landgraves were not particular as to their market or their customers. 
In 1687 one of them let out a thousand soldiers to the Venetians fighting 
against the Turks. In 1702 nine thousand Hessians served under the 
maritime powers, and in 1706 eleven thousand five hundred men were in 
Italy. England was the best customer. Through a large part of the 
eighteenth century she had Hessians in her pay. Some of them were with the 
army of the Duke of Cumberland during the Pretender's invasion in 1745; 
but it is stated that they refused to fight in that campaign for want of a 
cartel for the exchange of prisoners (Letter of Sir Joseph Yorke to the 
Earl of Suffolk, quoted in Kapp's Soldatenhandel," 1st ed. p. 229.) It 
would have been well for many of them had they declined to go to America 
for the same reason. So little was it a matter of patriotism, or of 
political preference, with the Landgraves, that in 1743 Hessian stood 
against Hessian, six thousand men serving in the army of King George II of 
England, and six thousand in the opposing force of the Emperor Charles VII.

The Landgraves of Hesse were not the only princes who dealt in troops. In 
the war of the American Revolution alone, six German rulers let out their 
soldiers to Great Britain. These were Frederick II, Landgrave of Hesse-
Cassel; William, his son, the independent Count of Hesse-Hanau; Charles I, 
Duke of Brunswick; Frederick, Prince of Waldeck; Charles Alexander, 
Margrave of Anspach-Bayreuth ; and Frederick Augustus, Prince of Anhalt-
Zerbst. The action of these princes was opposed to the policy of the 
empire and to the moral sense of the age: but the emperor had no power to 
prevent it, for the subjection of those parts of Germany which were 
outside of his hereditary dominions was little more than nominal.

The map of Germany in the last century presents the most extraordinary 
patchwork. Across the northern part of the country, from its eastern to 
its western side, but not in an unbroken line, stretch the territories of 
the King of Prussia. The Austrian hereditary dominions, in a comparatively 
compact mass, occupy the southeastern corner. Beyond the boundaries of 
these two great powers, all is confusion. Electorates, duchies, 
bishoprics, the dominions of margraves, landgraves, princes, and free 
cities are inextricably jumbled together. There were nearly three hundred 
sovereignties in Germany, besides over fourteen hundred estates of 
Imperial Knights, holding immediately of the empire, and having many 
rights of sovereignty. Some of these three hundred states were not larger 
than townships in New England, many of them not larger than American 
counties. Nor was each of them compact in itself, for one dominion was 
often composed of several detached parcels of territory. Yet every little 
princedom had to maintain its petty prince, with his court and his army. 
The princes were practically despotic. The remnants of what had once been 
constitutional assemblies still existed in many places, but they 
represented at best but a small part of the population (The Landstande had 
more influence in Hesse than elsewhere. They are said to have tried in 
vain to obtain for the Country a share in the money received by the 
Landgrave for letting out troops. - Biedermann, "Deutschland im 
Achtzehnten jahrhundert," vol. i. p. 114.) The cities and towns were 
governed by privileged classes. In the country some little freedom 
remained with the peasants of some neighborhoods as to the management of 
their village affairs, but in general the peasantry were not much better 
off than serfs, and subject to the tyranny of a horde of officials, who 
intermeddled in every important action of their lives. Trade was hampered 
by tolls and duties, for every little state had its own financial system. 
Commerce and manufactures were impeded by monopolies. In certain places 
sumptuary laws regulated the dress or the food of the people.

Before the last quarter of the century some improvement had taken place in 
the political condition of Germany. Frederick the Great of Prussia and 
Joseph II of Austria were, in their different ways, enlightened princes, 
and their example had stimulated many of the better sovereigns to exert 
themselves in some measure for the good of their people. The influence of 
the Liberal movement in France was also felt. But the idea of political 
freedom had hardly taken shape in the most cultivated of German minds. The 
good or evil disposition of the prince was no more under the control of 
the ordinary subject than the state of the weather. The doctrine of 
passive obedience was in fashion, though not entirely uncontested. If, as 
one writer on politics explained, it was the duty of the subject to submit 
in case his prince should take his life in mere wantonness, it was to be 
hoped that another writer was equally correct in saying that "in princely 
houses all virtues are hereditary." (Biedermann, vol. i. pp. 161, 163, n.)

Let us now look a little nearer at those special inheritors of all the 
virtues who sent mercenaries to America. The most important of them was 
Frederick II, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel (not to be confounded with his 
great namesake and contemporary of Prussia). This prince was the Catholic 
ruler of a Protestant country. His first wife had been an English 
princess, a daughter of George II. She had separated herself from the 
Landgrave on his conversion to Catholicism, and had retired to Hanau, with 
her precious son, of whom I shall presently speak.

Frederick had led a merry life of it at Cassel. He had taken unto himself 
a cast-off mistress of the Duc de Bouillon, but set up no pretensions to 
fidelity, and is said to have had more than a hundred children. A French 
theatre and opera, with a French corps de ballet, were maintained. French 
adventurers with good letters obtained a welcome and even responsible 
positions in the state. The court was ordered on a French model. French 
was, moreover, then, and has remained almost to our own day, the language 
of princes, courtiers, and diplomatists. In that language Frederick the 
Great corresponded with many of his relations, in it his sister wrote her 
private memoirs, and French was spoken at the court of that smaller 
Frederick whom we have in hand.

At the time of the American Revolution, the Landgrave was living with his 
second wife. He was about sixty years old, and seems to have become 
comparatively steady in his habits. He was a good man of business. His 
troops, drilled on the Prussian system, and recruited in a measure among 
his own subjects by conscription, were good soldiers. His army in 1781 
numbered twenty-two thousand, while the population of his territories was 
little above three hundred thousand souls; but many foreigners were 
enticed into the service, and a few of the regiments were not kept 
permanently under the banners, but spent the larger part of the year 
disbanded, and met only for a few weeks of drill ("Briefe eines 
Reisenden.") Frederick took a personal interest in his army, and 
corresponded with his officers in America, making the hand and eye of the 
master usefully felt. He took pains with the internal affairs of his 
country, leaving, indeed, a full treasury at his death. He founded schools 
and museums, and, like all his family, loved costly buildings. When he 
sent twelve thousand men to America he diminished the taxes of his 
remaining subjects, and though these were sad and down-trodden, though 
they mourned their sons and brothers sent to fight in a strange quarrel 
beyond the sea, we may linger for a moment regretfully over Frederick of 
Hesse-Cassel, for he dealt in good wares, he showed some personal dignity, 
and he was one of the least disreputable of the princes who sent 
mercenaries to America.

William, the eldest son and heir apparent of Landgrave Frederick, governed 
at the time of the Revolution the independent county of Hanau, which lay a 
few miles to the eastward of the city of Frankfort. William was his 
father's inferior in dignity and his equal in cupidity. As early as 
August, 1775, when the news of the battle of Bunker Hill must have been 
very fresh in Germany, the hereditary prince hastened to offer a regiment 
to George Ill, "without making the smallest condition." In spite of his 
protestations of disinterested devotion, he obtained in the end a larger 
price per man furnished than any one of his competitors, except his most 
serene father.

The courts of Cassel and of Hanau were not on good terms. The Landgrave, 
since his change of religion, had quarrelled with his wife and his heirs. 
But the mode of life of his eldest son was not very different from his 
own. When William had a natural child to provide for, he added a kreutzer 
(about one cent) to the price of every bag of salt which his subjects 
brought from the salt-mines, and gave the revenue thus obtained to the 
infant. As his left-handed children numbered seventy-four, the poorer of 
his subjects must have learned to be sparing of their salt. One of his 
bastards was that General von Haynau who, in the service of Austria, 
committed terrible cruelties in Italy in 1849, causing women to be whipped 
in Brescia, and who was afterwards mobbed in London. William's mistress 
for years was a Fraulein von Schlotheim, who at first ran away from him, 
but was sent back to him by her own parents. In the words of a lady of 
Cassel, "The Hessian nobility could not spare this advantage." Though the 
prince received some £12,000 a year as subsidy for sending troops to 
America, he is believed by Kapp to have remitted no taxes except to the 
wives and parents of soldiers with the expedition, or such taxes as were 
levied on the property of these soldiers themselves, where they had no 
wives or parents. As for the princes to be mentioned hereafter, I do not 
learn that they remitted any taxes at all, but my sources of information 
may be defective.

Duke Charles I reigned over Brunswick-Luneburg, and the hereditary Prince 
Charles William Ferdinand was associated with him in the government. The 
latter had married a sister of King George III. The land had but one 
hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, and the princes were deeply in 
debt. Charles was extravagant and the Seven Years' War had been expensive. 
Attempts had been made to help out the finances by alchemy, but the gold 
had all flown up the chimney or made its way into the pockets of the 
alchemists, and none was found in the melting-pots. An Italian theatrical 
director received a salary Of 30,000 thalers a year, while Lessing, 
already the author of "Emilia Gallotti" and "Minna von Barnhelm," served 
as librarian for a pittance. Prince Charles William Ferdinand was a better 
economist than his father. The lottery, a fashionable means of raising 
money at that time, was established under the direction of a minister of 
state, and made to bring in a good income, and, although the Duke of 
Brunswick received less per head in the shape of subsidy for the soldiers 
sent to America than any other of the princes, he was able, for his corps 
of forty-three hundred men, to pocket more than £160,000 before the end of 
the war.

The little territories of Anspach and Bayreuth, containing together about 
four hundred thousand souls, had lately been united under the government 
of Margrave Charles Alexander. Neither land had been fortunate in its 
previous sovereign. Both countries had belonged to branches of the great 
Hohenzollern family, the main line of which had already laid in Prussia 
the foundations of that power which has given it to-day the foremost place 
in Europe. But the Margraves of Anspach and of Bayreuth lacked the ability 
which underlay the roughness of King Frederick William, father of 
Frederick the Great. Of this Frederick William we have a lively picture in 
the memoirs of his daughter Wilhelmina. How he chased his children about 
the room with his stick, how Wilhelmina hid under the bed and Frederick in 
the closet, how the king loved tall soldiers and bullied his wife are 
there graphically narrated. With the express object of making her story 
more cheerful, the princess tells how her father, in general the most 
chaste of monarchs, tried to kiss a lady of honor on the stairs, and how 
she struck him in the face and made his nose bleed. This Wilhelmina 
married a Margrave of Bayreuth, and her sister, Frederika Louisa, married 
a Margrave of Anspach, but did not live on good terms with him.

This Margrave of Anspach was good-natured, in his way, and kindly, when 
not out of temper. He liked to do small favors to his servants, and to 
inform these of them with his own lips. He gladly allowed dainties to be 
sent to the sick from his kitchen. When not in liquor, he was inclined to 
commute the death penalty to criminals in civil life, unless they had been 
guilty of such heinous offences as persuading his soldiers to desert, 
thieving about his court, or poaching; but his military executions were 
barbarous. The Margrave was regular in his attendance at church, and given 
to endowing churches, schools, and hospitals. He might, therefore, have 
been beloved of his subjects, but for his ungoverned temper, and for the 
excesses into which it led him. Thus, having heard that his dogs were not 
well fed, he rode to the house of the man who had them in charge, called 
him to the door, and shot him on his own threshold. An inn-keeper, having 
complained of some petty theft, the Margrave had the thief hanged before 
the host's door. In 1747 a servant-girl was hanged without trial for 
having helped a soldier to desert. As the Margrave was riding out of his 
castle one day, he stopped and asked the sentinel on guard, who happened 
to be one of the city watch, and not a regular soldier, for his musket. 
The poor fellow, unsuspectingly, gave it up; whereupon the Margrave called 
him a coward and a scoundrel, and had two hussars drag him through the 
mill-pond at their horses' tails, of which treatment he died. One of his 
equerries, Von Reitzenstein by name, although avaricious and corruptible, 
was a favorite with the people for sometimes moderating these excesses. On 
one occasion a shepherd with a flock of sheep did not clear the road for 
the Margrave quickly enough, and made his Most Serene Highness's horse 
shy. The Margrave asked the equerry for his pistols to shoot the fellow. 
"They are not loaded," answered Von Reitzenstein. When the party got near 
home, however, the equerry took out both pistols and fired them into the 
air. Bang! bang! "What's the matter?" cried the startled Margrave. "My 
gracious master," answered the other, "I think you will sleep far better 
to-night for having heard the crack of the pistols now, rather than an 
hour ago."

It was far from safe to criticise the Margrave's conduct. In 1740 one 
Christoph Wilhelm von Rauber was accused of posting up caricatures and 
lampoons. For this he was sentenced to strike himself on the mouth, under 
penalty of having it done for him by the executioner; to see the latter 
burn his lampoons; and finally to have his head cut off; which last 
punishment was graciously commuted to perpetual imprisonment and 
confiscation ("Geschichte des vorletzten Markgrafen von Brandenburg-
Ansbach," von Karl Heinrich Ritter von Lang.)

Charles Alexander, son of this murdering Margrave, appears to have been 
more humane than his father. He was sent in his youth to Utrecht to learn 
republican virtues, and then to Italy, probably to learn princely graces. 
He returned worn out with dissipation, the blame of which his father found 
it convenient to lay on his travelling companion, Councillor Mayer. The 
latter was imprisoned at Zelle, and his subsequent fate is unknown. 
According to another story, he was executed at Altenkirchen.

In 1777, Charles Alexander, who had become Margrave both of Anspach and of 
Bayreuth, was deeply in debt, and delighted with the chance to let out two 
regiments of his subjects for foreign service. Recruits and additional 
soldiers were sent out from time to time until a total of two thousand 
three hundred and fifty-three men had been reached, for whose services the 
Margrave received more than £100,000 sterling. Charles Alexander was the 
last Margrave of Anspach and Bayreuth. In 1791 he sold both countries to 
Prussia, for a pension, on which he afterwards lived in England, where he 
died in 1806.

Beside the Margraves of Anspach, the Princes of Waldeck seem almost 
respectable. To be sure, they used their little country (it lies westward 
from Cassel) principally as a stock-farm to raise men for the Dutch 
market, but they themselves fought with distinction for the same country. 
The fitting-out of troops for America was merely a side speculation, and 
the whole number sent was only one thousand two hundred and twenty-five 
soldiers.

Frederick Augustus, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, may be looked on as the 
caricature of the little German princes of his day. He reigned over some 
twenty thousand subjects, but he cannot be said to have governed them, for 
the last thirty years of his life were spent in Basle and in Luxemburg. 
Even there did he find that his subjects could be troublesome, and he 
forbade, by a formal printed order, that any one of his servants should 
trouble him with the affairs of his principality, under pain of dismissal. 
He was not above being severe, however, for he had a gallows erected on 
the Island of Wangeroge for the terror of oyster stealers. His army of two 
thousand men, and these, I think, mostly on paper, numbered no less than 
eleven colonels, yet when it came to sending six hundred men to America he 
had to go out of his own dominions to find not only soldiers but officers. 
The little principality was, so to speak, in commission, and governed by a 
few privy-councillors. It had neither arts nor manufactures, and had 
suffered from war, famine, pestilence, and flood. But it was a land highly 
honored. The sister of its prince was the Empress Catherine II of Russia. 
That prince himself, though he lived away from his country, was quite 
sensible to the glory of his position, and had a feeling heart for the 
sufferings of monarchs, if not of subjects. When he heard that impious 
Frenchmen had cut off the head of their king, Louis XVI., he was borne 
down with melancholy, refused food and drink, and died, as he had lived, a 
parody, the caricature of a royal martyr.



CHAPTER II.
THE TREATIES.

In the negotiations between the court of Great Britain and the German 
princes for the hire of mercenaries to serve against the rebels in 
America, it is clear that both sides were eager to come to terms. England 
wanted the men, the princes wanted the money, and while the latter were 
anxious to receive as large subsidies as possible, the chief care of Lord 
North's cabinet was to obtain the greatest number of soldiers with the 
least possible delay. Friedrich Kapp, the German historian of these 
bargains, thinks that Colonel William Faucitt, the British commissioner 
and plenipotentiary in the whole matter, was extravagant in the terms he 
granted. This does not appear, however, to have been the opinion of the 
Earl of Suffolk, Lord North's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who 
constantly expressed himself as well satisfied with his agent.

The British cabinet had been disappointed in the hope, which it had 
entertained in the summer and early autumn of 1775, of obtaining twenty 
thousand men from Russia. Its negotiations for the use of a so-called 
Scotch regiment, actually in the service of Holland, were destined to 
fail. Five battalions of the Hanoverian subjects of George III were 
despatched to Gibraltar and Minorca, setting the Englishmen who had been 
in garrison in those fortresses free for other service. No further source 
of supply was left but the small independent principalities of Germany.

On the other hand, the hereditary Prince of Hesse-Cassel, actual reigning 
Count of Hesse-Hanau, had written to express to His Majesty of England his 
zeal and attachment to the best of kings, and to offer the services of his 
regiment of five hundred men, "all sons of the land which the protection 
of your Majesty alone insures to me, and all ready to sacrifice with me 
their life and their blood for your service." It must not be imagined, 
however, that the prince was thinking of putting his own precious blood in 
any danger, and the expression of the eagerness of his subjects may also 
be considered rhetorical. The Prince of Waldeck wrote in the same strain 
in November, 1775, offering six hundred men. His officers and soldiers, 
like their prince, asked nothing better than to find an occasion to 
sacrifice themselves for His Majesty.

The Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg and the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel did not 
at first offer their services, but Colonel Faucitt found no difficulty in 
entering into negotiations with them. The Margrave of Anspach-Bayreuth 
made an offer of two battalions in the autumn Of 1775, but the treaty with 
him was not entered into for more than a year afterwards, and finally, in 
October, 1777, an agreement was made with the Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, who 
had long been doing all in his power to bring one about. Offers of troops 
on the part of the Elector of Bavaria and the Duke of Wurtemberg led to no 
result, partly on account of the bad quality and equipment of the soldiers 
offered, and partly, in the case of the latter, on account of the trouble 
made by Frederick the Great about the passage of troops through his 
dominions. Proposals of several other small German princes came to nothing.

The treaty first concluded was that with the Duke of Brunswick. It is 
dated January 9, 1776. The Duke yields to his Britannic Majesty a corps of 
three thousand nine hundred and sixty-four infantry men, and three hundred 
and thirty-six unmounted dragoons. This corps is to be completely equipped 
at the expense of the Duke, except as to horses for the light cavalry. 
They are to march from Brunswick in two divisions in February and March, 
and the King is to take measures to prevent desertion while they pass 
through his electoral dominions of Hanover on their way to the sea. The 
King is to pay and feed them on the same scale as his own soldiers, and 
the Duke engages "to let his corps enjoy all the emoluments of pay that 
his Britannic Majesty allows them," that is to say, not to pay them on a 
lower scale and pocket the difference. The British government, however, 
did not trust him. From the time of the arrival of the troops in America 
their pay was sent direct to them there, and did not pass through his Most 
Serene Ducal Highness's hands. This precaution was adopted with all the 
German auxiliaries but those of Hesse-Cassel, whose landgrave succeeded in 
getting the handling of the money. The Brunswick soldiers were to be cared 
for in the British hospitals, and the wounded not in condition to serve 
were to be transported to Europe at the expense of the King, and landed in 
a port on the Elbe or the Weser. The Duke agreed to furnish the recruits 
that should be annually necessary for the corps, to discipline and to 
equip them, but if it should happen that any of the regiments, battalions, 
or companies of the corps should suffer a loss altogether extraordinary, 
either in a battle, a siege, or by an uncommon contagious malady, or by 
the loss of any transport vessel in the voyage to America, his Britannic 
Majesty was to make good the loss of the officer or soldier, and to bear 
the expense of the necessary recruits to reestablish the corps that should 
have suffered this extraordinary loss.

The Duke was to nominate the officers, and fill vacancies among them. He 
engaged that they should be expert persons. He reserved to himself the 
administration of justice. He stipulated that his troops should not be 
required to render any extraordinary services, or such as were beyond 
their proportion to the rest of the army.

The King of England agreed to pay to his Most Serene Highness, under the 
title of levy-money, for every soldier the amount Of 30 crowns banco, 
equal to £7 4s. 4 1/2d. He was to grant, moreover, an annual subsidy 
amounting to £11,517 17s. 1 1/2d. from the day of the signature of the 
treaty so long as the troops should enjoy his pay, and double that amount 
(viz., £23,035 14s. 3d.) for two years after the return of the troops into 
his Most Serene Highness's dominions. In consideration of the haste with 
which the troops were equipped his Majesty granted two months' pay 
previous to their march, and undertook all expenses from the time of their 
leaving their quarters.

One more provision of this treaty deserves special notice, as it has 
excited the well-warranted indignation of all who have execrated these 
bargains for the sale of human blood. It runs: "According to custom, three 
wounded men shall be reckoned as one killed; a man killed shall be paid 
for at the rate of levy-money." This clause, which does not appear in the 
subsequent treaty with Hesse-Cassel, stands in the Brunswick treaty in the 
same article with, and immediately before, the provision for making good 
any extraordinary loss from battle, pestilence, or shipwreck. It may be 
taken to mean that the King of England undertook to bear the expense of a 
recruit to fill the place of a Brunswick soldier actually killed in 
battle, but that the Duke must replace at his own cost one who deserted 
from the ranks or died of sickness, unless in case of an "uncommon 
contagious malady." Yet if this be the interpretation, what is the meaning 
of the "three wounded men." Kapp, moreover, rejects this explanation, and 
asserts that new recruits were paid for by levy-money in addition to the 
30 crowns received for the killed and wounded, and that this blood money 
was pocketed by the prince and not by the family of the soldier, nor by 
himself, if wounded (Sybel's "Historische Zeitschrift," II, 6 - 42, 1879, 
p. 327.) At any rate, the fact remains that the Duke of Brunswick 
contracted to receive a sum amounting to about $35 for every one of his 
soldiers who should be killed in battle, and $11. 66 for every one who 
should be maimed. It is probably now impossible to discover how much 
England actually paid out on this account. The payments were not entered 
under their proper heading in the bills sent to Parliament from the War 
Office. Kapp suggests that the cabinet did not care to meet the criticism 
which this item in the accounts would have raised.

The treaty with Hesse-Cassel, dated January 15, 1776, differs from that 
with Brunswick principally as being more favorable to the German court. In 
the first place, the King of Great Britain was made to engage in a 
defensive alliance with the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel. The Hessian troops 
were to be kept together under their own general, unless reasons of war 
should require them to be separated. Their sick were to remain in the care 
of their surgeons and other persons appointed for the purpose under the 
Hessian generals, and everything was to be allowed them which the King 
allowed to his own troops. Under this treaty the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel 
was to furnish twelve thousand men, completely equipped, and with 
artillery if desired. He was to be paid levy-money at the same rate as the 
Duke of Brunswick, viz., 30 crowns banco, or £7 4s. 4 1/2 d. for every 
man. His subsidy, however, was larger in proportion, amounting to 450,000 
crowns banco, or £108,281 5s. per annum, to be continued (but not doubled) 
for one year after the actual return of the troops to Hesse. The Landgrave 
subsequently furnished various smaller contingents, making special 
bargains for them, but his advantage over the duke may be roughly 
estimated from the fact that, barring the blood-money above spoken of, and 
concerning which we have no data, barring, also, whatever pickings and 
stealings the most serene rivals managed to gather in, and counting only 
levy-money and subsidies, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel received more than 
twice as much per man sent to America as the Duke of Brunswick. In 
addition to this, and outside of the treaty, the Landgrave insisted on the 
payment of an old claim, dating from the Seven Years' War, previously 
disallowed by England, and amounting to £41,820 14s. 5d.

The treaties with the smaller states, Hesse-Hanau, Waldeck, Anspach-
Bayreuth, and Anhalt-Zerbst did not differ in their main features from 
those already described. None of them were quite so favorable to the 
princes as the treaty with Cassel, none quite so favorable to England as 
that with Brunswick. The bloodmoney clause is found in those of Hanau and 
Waldeck, but not in that of Anspach (For the text of the treaties with 
Brunswick, Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Hanau, and Waldeck, see "Parliamentary 
Register," 1st series, vol. iii.; for the treaty with Anspach, vol. vii.)

From time to time bargains were made with several of the princes above 
mentioned for small additional bodies of troops. Chasseurs or 
sharpshooters were especially in request. From year to year recruits were 
sent out to America to the various divisions. The sum total of men, 
according to Kapp, was made up as follows:

Brunswick sent ..........5,723
Hesse-Cassel sent ......16,992
Hesse-Hanau sent ........2,422
Anspach-Bayreuth sent....2,353
Waldeck sent ............1,225
Anhalt-Zerbst sent ......1,160
Total...................29,875

Of these, rather more than eighteen thousand sailed to America in 1776. Of 
this total of nearly thirty thousand men, twelve thousand five hundred and 
sixty-two did not return to Germany (6 Schlozer's "Staats-Anzeiger," 521, 
with the corrections made by Kapp in respect to the Anspach contingent. 
"Soldatenhandel," 2d edition, p. 209. Besides the contingents sent to 
America from Germany by agreement with the princes, a certain number of 
Germans served in the English regiments, some of which had recruiting 
stations on the Rhine.

It is difficult to say how the bargains between England and the German 
princes were regarded by public opinion in Germany at the time. Schlozer's 
Briefwechsel, the foremost German periodical of the period, was published 
at Gottingen, in the Hanoverian dominions of George III. It contains many 
articles on the American war, all written on the English side, with the 
single exception of a letter from Baron Steuben, who was fighting for the 
colonies. This letter is, moreover, annotated by the editor in a sense 
adverse to the Americans. This tone may perhaps have been forced upon 
Schlozer by circumstances, as the press in Germany was then tolerated 
rather than free. An interesting little book was published at 
Wolfenbuttel, near Brunswick, in 1778. It gives an account of America, its 
products, its geography, and its history, together with an excellent map. 
The author of the book is decidedly hostile to the colonists. The sending 
of more than seventeen thousand Germans to America is briefly, one might 
almost say incidentally, mentioned, though the earlier operations of the 
war and of these auxiliaries are described at some length. Yet the 
presence of so many Germans in the New World was undoubtedly the principal 
reason for the book's existence. It is fair, also, to consider that 
rebellion was in those days looked on with far sterner eyes than at 
present, and that, by people of a conservative turn of mind, at least, it 
was treated not as a political mistake, but as a heinous crime.

Quite different was the style in which the liberals of Europe spoke of the 
war and of the mercenaries. The principles which were to bring about the 
French Revolution were at work, and some of the actors of that great drama 
were already stepping upon the stage. Mirabeau, then a fugitive in 
Holland, published a pamphlet addressed "To the Hessians and other nations 
of Germany, sold by their Princes to England." It is an eloquent protest 
against the rapacity of the princes, a splendid tribute to the patriotism 
of the Americans. The genius of Mirabeau could look far enough into the 
future to recognize in the North American continent an asylum for the 
oppressed of all nations. His blow at the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel struck 
home. Not only did the latter attempt to buy up the edition of the 
pamphlet, but he caused an answer to be published, which only had the 
effect of calling forth a rejoinder, in which the future tribune maintains 
that an offense against the freedom of nations is the greatest of crimes. 
In the same spirit wrote Abbe Raynal and others, some of them better known 
in Europe, at that time, than Mirabeau, and against them a paper warfare 
was kept up in the Dutch journals, then the most influential, because the 
freest, on the Continent. In the public library at Cassel is an 
interesting little pamphlet published in 1782 in French, and also in 
German. This pamphlet is attributed by Kapp to Schlieffen, the Minister of 
Landgrave Frederick II; but I do not know on what authority. The writer 
pointed out such novel facts as that men had in all ages slaughtered each 
other, that the Swiss had long been in the habit of fighting as 
mercenaries, that the ten thousand Greeks under Xenophon did the same, and 
he considered it unjust to blame his contemporaries for what seemed to be 
a natural instinct of mankind. He noticed that the present letting-out of 
troops by Hesse was perhaps the tenth occasion of the sort since the 
beginning of the century. He showed the benefits which the Landgrave had 
bestowed on his country, and the affection in which he was held by his 
people. He drew attention - and this was, perhaps, his best argument - to 
the fact that the Landgrave of Hesse and the Duke of Brunswick were so 
nearly connected with the English royal family that their descendants 
might be one day called to the throne of Great Britain (This argument was 
not mentioned in the British Parliament, where it might, perhaps, have 
been received with derision.) As for the boasted Liberty of the Americans, 
she was but a deceitful siren, for all history proved that republican 
governments were as tyrannical and cruel as monarchies.

Meanwhile the Freiherr von Gemmingen, minister to the Margrave of Anspach, 
was a little ashamed of the business in which he found himself. "It always 
seems very hard to me to deal in troops," writes he to his agent in 
London, "but the Margrave is determined to set his affairs in order at any 
price, and to pay all his own debts and those of his predecessors. So the 
good that may come out of such a treaty of subsidy will far outweigh the 
hatefulness of the business." Later he writes: "The treaty which we have 
just made is much more favorable than we could have expected, especially 
when you think that the offer came from us, and that the royal arms have 
hitherto had such great success in America. The matter will naturally be 
looked on in the most unfavorable light possible by people who do not 
understand how to see an affair of state as a whole, and with its proper 
motives. But as soon as such people see foreign money flowing into our 
poor country, as soon as they see us paying its debts with the means which 
come pouring in, they and the whole world will be enchanted, and will 
acknowledge that the troops, whose business is to fight the enemies of the 
state, have conquered our worst enemy - viz., our debts. Even the lowest 
soldier shipped to America, well paid and provided with what is most 
necessary, will come back with his savings and be proud to have worked for 
his country and for his own advantage.... I am, in general, a declared 
enemy of such dealings in men; but there are cases in which the evil 
changes into a comparative benefit, and such, if I am not mistaken, is 
ours." (Kapp's "Soldatenhandel," 2d ed. pp. 108, 123, 124.)

Frederick the Great, in a letter to Voltaire (June 18, 1776), expressed 
his contempt for the men-selling princes, and found occasion at a somewhat 
later time to throw impediments in their way. "Had the Landgrave come out 
of my school," he writes, "he would not have sold his subjects to the 
English as one sells cattle to be dragged to the shambles. This is an 
unbecoming trait in the character of a prince who sets himself up as a 
teacher of rulers. Such conduct is caused by nothing but dirty 
selfishness. I pity the poor Hessians who end their lives unhappily and 
uselessly in America." (Quoted by Kapp in Sybel's "Historische
Zeitschrift," II, 6-42. 1879, p. 314) Napoleon, when thirty years 
afterwards he drove away the then Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel (the Count of 
Hanau of our treaties), expressed the feeling of a later age: "The House 
of Hesse-Cassel has for many years sold its subjects to England. Thus have 
the electors gathered such great treasures. This vile avarice now 
overthrows their house."

But the infamy of the man-selling princes is perpetuated in Germany more 
by the words of the best-beloved of her poets than by those of the two 
greatest generals of the last century. In his tragedy of "Cabale und
Liebe," written during the progress of the American war, Schiller has left 
an eloquent protest against the vile traffic. "But none were forced to 
go?" says Lady Milford to the old chamberlain, who is telling her how his 
two sons, with seven thousand of their countrymen, have been sent off to 
America. "Oh, God! no," he answers - "all volunteers. It is true, a few 
saucy fellows stepped out of the ranks and asked the colonels how much a 
yoke the prince sold men; but our most gracious master ordered all the 
regiments to march on to the parade ground, and had the jackanapes shot 
down. We heard the crack of the rifles, saw their brains spatter the 
pavement, and shouted, 'Hurrah! to America!'

"Lady. Oh, God! oh, God! And I heard nothing? and I noticed nothing?

"Chamberlain. Yes, madam! Why did you ride out to the bear-hunt with our 
master, just as the signal was given to march away? You should not have 
missed that imposing spectacle, when the loud drums told us the time was 
come, and shrieking orphans here followed a living father, and there a 
raving mother ran to impale her sucking babe on the bayonets. You should 
have seen how lovers were torn asunder with sabre strokes, and old 
graybeards stood still in their despair, and at last threw their very 
crutches after the young fellows who were starting for the New World. Oh! 
and through it all, the noisy rolling of the drums, so that the Almighty 
might not hear us pray!

"Lady. Be quiet, poor old man! They will come back. They will see their 
home again.

"Chamberlain. Heaven knows it! So they will! Even at the city gates they 
turned and cried, 'God help you, wife and children! Long live our father 
the duke! We shall be back for the Day of Judgment!'"



CHAPTER III.
THE TREATIES BEFORE PARLIAMENT.

The aggressive or apologetic tone of the ministers of German despots was 
of little importance, when once the course of their masters had been 
determined on. The impassioned protest of a young German poet or of a 
French pamphleteer could hardly be reckoned among political forces. The 
King of Prussia, whose word might have been law in the matter of letting-
out German soldiers for foreign service, preferred to sneer rather than to 
command. But in the Parliament of Great Britain the treaties between the 
King of England and the mercenary princes were discussed by responsible 
ministers of the crown on the one side, and by statesmen, some of whom 
might one day be called to power, on the other. It is true that the 
majority which supported the administration was so overwhelming that the 
opposition could not hope soon to overthrow it. But there can be little 
doubt that if the greater number of votes in Parliament was in 1776 on the 
Tory side, the weight of intellect was as decidedly with the Whigs.

On February 29, 1776, Lord North moved that the treaties entered into 
between His Majesty and the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, the Duke of 
Brunswick, and the hereditary Prince of Hesse-Cassel, be referred to the 
Committee of Supply ("Parliamentary Register," 1st series, vol. iii. pp. 
341-360.) He said that the troops were wanted as the best and most speedy 
means of reducing America to a proper constitutional state of obedience, 
because men could be readier had and upon much cheaper terms in this way 
than they could possibly be recruited at home; that the troops hired would 
cost less than could have been expected, referring to former times and 
taking all the circumstances together; and, lastly, that the force which 
this measure would enable them to send to America would be such as, in all 
human probability, must compel that country to agree to terms of 
submission, perhaps without further effusion of blood.

Lord North was supported by Mr. Cornwall, who assured the House that he 
had a better opportunity of knowing the means of treating with German 
princes and procuring troops than any man in it; that his situation for 
many years (as clerk in the German pay office during the last war) gave 
him this opportunity; and that he was astonished to hear any gentleman 
conversant with German connections call the present terms disadvantageous. 
He contended that the two months' previous pay allowed to the Duke of 
Brunswick was no more than a douceur; and insisted that the troops were 
all had on better terms than was ever known before, especially if the 
business should be effected within the year, of which he had no reason to 
doubt.

Lord George Germaine defended the measure on the ground of necessity. He 
quoted a number of precedents to show that in every war, or rebellion, 
England had had recourse to foreigners to fight her battles and to support 
her government; and Lord Barrington, who is known in his heart to have 
disapproved of the general conduct of the administration, and to have been 
in vain urging the king to accept his resignation, supported the motion on 
similar grounds. Recruits could be obtained on no other terms. He 
confessed that the bargain was not advantageous, but it was the best that 
could be made.

On the other side, Lord John Cavendish reprobated the measure in all its 
parts. Britain was to be disgraced in the eyes of all Europe. He objected 
to the terms of the treaties, particular by particular, and pointed out 
that a body of twelve thousand foreigners was to be introduced into the 
dominions of the British crown , under no control of either king or 
parliament; for the express terms of the treaty were "that this body of 
troops shall remain under the orders of the general to whom his Most 
Serene Highness [the Landgrave] shall have intrusted the command."

Lord Irnham doubted the competency of the princes to make such treaties. 
He held it inconsistent with their duty to the Empire, which must thereby 
be rendered vile and dishonorable in the eyes of all Europe, as a nursery 
of men reserved for the purpose of supporting arbitrary power, whenever 
grasped by those who had more money, though not more justice and virtue, 
than the others whom they could pay for oppressing. He compared the 
princes to Sancho Panza, who wished that if he were a prince all his 
subjects should be blackamoors, as he could by the sale of them easily 
turn them into ready money.

Mr. Seymour answered Mr. Cornwall, and defied him to produce a single 
instance in which the same number of men, within the same time, had cost 
the nation so much.

The Hon. James Luttrell pointed out that there were already a hundred and 
fifty thousand Germans settled in America, and that the hired troops were 
likely to desert. Edmund Burke stated that for every thousand foreigners 
they were paying as much as for fifteen hundred natives. Sir George 
Saville insisted that this was the worst bargain of the kind ever made 
since the hiring of foreign troops had prevailed; and Alderman Bull closed 
the debate. "Let not the historian be obliged to say," he exclaimed, "that 
the Russian and the German slave was hired to subdue the sons of 
Englishmen and of freedom; and that in the reign of a prince of the House 
of Brunswick, every infamous attempt was made to extinguish the spirit 
which brought his ancestors to the throne, and in spite of treachery and 
rebellion seated them firmly upon it." The alderman's sentiments were 
better than his rhetoric, but both were equally unavailing. The motion was 
passed by two hundred and forty-two votes to eighty-eight.

On March 5, 1776, the Duke of Richmond moved in the House of Lords that a 
humble address be presented to his Majesty, praying that he would be 
graciously pleased to countermand the march of the foreign troops, and to 
give directions for an immediate suspension of hostilities in America 
("Parliamentary Register," 1st series, vol. v. pp. 174-216.) The protest 
expressed the sense which the House entertained of the danger and disgrace 
of the treaties, which acknowledged to all Europe that Great Britain was 
unable, either from want of men, or disinclination to this service, to 
furnish a competent number of natural-born subjects to make the first 
campaign. It was a melancholy consideration that the drawing off the 
national troops (though feeble for the unhappy purpose on which they were 
employed) would yet leave Great Britain naked and exposed to the assaults 
and invasion of powerful neighboring and foreign nations.

The document then pointed out that a reconciliation with the colonies 
would be preferable to the employment of foreigners, who, when they were 
at so great a distance from their own country, and suffering under the 
distresses of a war wherein they had no concern, with so many temptations 
to exchange vassalage for freedom, would be more likely to mutiny or 
desert than to unite faithfully and co-operate with his Majesty's natural-
born subjects.

After showing the danger of foreign troops being brought into the realm, 
and complaining that they had already been introduced into two of the 
strongest fortresses (Hanoverian troops had been sent to Gibraltar and 
Port Mahon),the protest continues: "We have, moreover, just reason to 
apprehend that when the colonies come to understand that Great Britain is 
forming alliances, and hiring foreign troops for their destruction, they 
may think they are well justified by the example, in endeavoring to avail 
themselves of the like assistance; and that France, Spain, Prussia, or 
other powers of Europe may conceive that they have as good a right as 
Hesse, Brunswick, and Hanau to interfere in our domestic quarrels."

The danger of being obliged to defend the Landgrave of Hesse in his 
quarrels in Europe was then pointed out, and the opinion was expressed 
"that Great Britain never before entered into a treaty so expensive, so 
unequal, so dishonorable, and so dangerous in its consequences."

In introducing the protest, the Duke of Richmond gave a short history of 
the several treaties entered into, since 1702, with the Landgraves of 
Hesse, and showed that the successive landgraves, from time to time, rose 
in their demands; and still, as they continued to extort better terms, 
never failed to establish their former extortion as a precedent for the 
basis of the new succeeding treaty, always taking care to make some new 
demand on Great Britain. This treaty was "a downright, mercenary bargain, 
for the taking into pay of a certain number of hirelings, who were bought 
and sold like so many beasts for slaughter. . . . But taking it on the 
other ground, that the treaties were formed on the basis of an alliance, 
what would be the consequence? That if any of these powers were attacked, 
or should wantonly provoke an attack, for the engagement was left general 
and unconditional, we should give them all the succor in our power. Thus, 
for the assistance of a few thousand foreign mercenaries, we are not only 
to pay double, but we are to enter into a solemn engagement to exert our 
whole force to give them all the succor in our power, if the Landgrave or 
the Duke shall be attacked or disturbed in the possession of his 
dominions."

The Duke of Richmond further remarked on the danger of keeping a body of 
twelve thousand foreigners together under the command of one of their own 
generals, on the possibility of such a general arriving at the supreme 
command, and on the confusion which might be created by a difference on 
this head between the foreign general and the commander-in-chief.

The Earl of Suffolk answered in behalf of the administration. "The tenor 
of the treaties themselves," he said, "is no other than has been usual on 
former occasions. The present, it is true, is filled with pompous, high-
sounding phrases of alliance, but I will be so ingenuous as to confess to 
the noble duke that I consider them merely in that light; and if he will, 
I allow that the true object of those treaties is not so much to create an 
alliance as to hire a body of troops, which the present rebellion in 
America has rendered necessary."

Having thus made light of the terms of a treaty for which he was 
personally responsible, Lord Suffolk proceeded to point out that the 
conditions of that treaty were advantageous if the employment of the 
troops should only last one year, but that in any case, if they wanted the 
soldiers, they were obliged to acquiesce in the terms demanded. He 
expressed his belief that the commander-in-chief superseded all other 
generals, and on being pressed he asserted positively that such was the 
case.

The Earl of Carlisle was persuaded that the number of hands required to 
carry on manufactures, the little use of new levies, at least for the 
first campaign, and the desire that every friend of his country ought to 
have for putting a speedy termination to the unhappy troubles, united, 
created an evident necessity for the employment of foreigners in 
preference to native troops. He called on their lordships to consider the 
unwieldy bulk of the empire, and the operations necessary even in case of 
a defensive war, and asked if it were possible for such an inconsiderable 
spot as the island of Great Britain, in the nature of things, to furnish 
numbers sufficient to carry on operations the nature of such a service 
would necessarily demand.

The debate was continued at great length and with considerable violence. 
On the Whig side the Duke of Cumberland lamented "to see Brunswickers who 
once, to their great honor, were employed in the defence of the liberties 
of the subject, now sent to subjugate his constitutional liberties in 
another part of this vast empire." The Duke of Manchester pointed out that 
"that man must be deemed a mercenary soldier who fights for pay in the 
cause in which he has no concern." The Earl of Effingham suggested that by 
a decree of the Imperial Chamber the directors of the circle might be 
ordered to march into the Landgrave's country to compel him to some act of 
justice or retribution; in which case England would be obliged to excuse 
her breach of the treaty by her ministers' ignorance of the imperial 
constitutions, or else to enter into a war, like that in America, not to 
maintain, but to subvert, the liberties of the Germanic body. The Earl of 
Shelburne denied the necessity of employing foreigners, and was supported 
in this by Lord Camden, who also appealed to their lordships, if the whole 
transaction were not a compound of the most solemn mockery, fallacy, and 
gross imposition that was ever attempted to be put upon a House of 
Parliament. "Is there one of your lordships," he asked, "that does not 
perceive most clearly that the whole is a mere mercenary bargain for the 
hire of troops on one side, and for the sale of human blood on the other; 
and that the devoted wretches thus purchased for slaughter are mere 
mercenaries in the worst sense of the word?"

The Tory lords would seem to have done less than their share of the 
talking, perhaps because it was unnecessary for them to speak, sure as 
they were of a majority. The motion was lost by thirty-two votes to one 
hundred.

It seems to me that their lordships were a little hard upon the German 
soldiers. Most of these poor fellows did not fight for pay at all, but 
fought because they could not help it. The people who were really 
"mercenaries in the worst sense of the word" were the Landgrave, the Duke, 
and the princes; but perhaps the noble lords could hardly be expected to 
say so.

As to the conduct of the British ministry in hiring the troops, it would 
seem that if the war were to be carried on energetically, no other course 
was possible. Owing to the distrust of regular soldiers that still 
lingered in English minds, the British army had not been maintained during 
peace of a strength equal to the demands now made upon it. Enlistments 
were made with difficulty, and could at best bring in but raw recruits. 
Conscription seems always to be out of the question in England. If men 
must be had, Lord North must seek them in Germany.

But the ministry and the empire paid a terrible price for the German 
auxiliaries. The answer to the treaty with the Landgrave was the 
Declaration of Independence. The employment of foreign mercenaries by the 
British government was largely instrumental in persuading the Americans to 
throw off their allegiance to the English crown, and to seek the alliance 
of their former enemies. The danger pointed out in the protest of the 
lords became a reality, and men of English blood held that France had as 
good a right as Hesse to interfere in their domestic quarrels (See 
Leckey's "History of England in the Eighteenth Century," vol. iii. pp. 453 
et seq. See also a clause in the Declaration of Independence (given in 
Appendix C).



CHAPTER IV.
THE SOLDIERS.

The soldiers whom the German princes let out to England for the 
suppression of the American rebellion were brought together in various 
ways. In Hesse-Cassel the country had been cut up into districts, each of 
which was to furnish a given number of recruits to a certain regiment. 
Officers were, however, instructed to bring as many foreigners as possible 
into the service, in order to spare their own districts, whose inhabitants 
would always be at hand, to be called in case of need. It was announced in 
the army regulations that regimental chiefs, or captains, would best 
recommend themselves to favor, by striving to enlist foreign recruits 
(Reglement von der Infanterie. Cassel, 1767. Theil ii. tit. v. art. 6.)

Forcible recruiting was forbidden; but this rule was probably intended to 
apply only to natives. It certainly does not seem to have diminished the 
activity of the recruiting officers, and probably no such rule existed in 
the smaller states. In Anspach no subject could leave the country, or 
marry, without permission ("Geschichte von Anspach," Fischer, 1786.) It is 
to be noted that in this case the country did not mean Germany, but the 
territories of the Margrave, and that the foreigners whom the Landgrave of 
Hesse wished to see recruited were the subjects of the neighboring German 
princelings. Recruiting officers were active all over Germany. 
Spendthrifts, loose livers, drunkards, arguers, restless people, and such 
as made political trouble, if not more than sixty years old and of fair 
health and stature, were forced into the ranks. The present of a tall, 
strapping fellow was at that time an acceptable compliment from one prince 
to another, and in every regiment were many deserters from the service of 
neighboring states. Together with this mixed rabble served the honest 
peasant lads of Germany, forced from their ploughs. It may be noted, as a 
general rule, that the regiments sent to America in 1776 were made up of 
better material than were the bodies of recruits subsequently furnished 
(In the autumn Of 1777 Knyphausen complains to the Landgrave that since 
the new recruits have joined the army, pilfering within the regiments and 
plundering outside of them can hardly be restrained.)

Johann Gottfried Seume, who afterwards attained some prominence as a 
writer, was a victim of the recruiting system, and has given an account of 
his adventures. Seume was a theological student at Leipsic, and having 
conceived religious doubts which he knew would be offensive to his 
friends, left that city on foot for Paris, with a sword at his side, a few 
shirts and a few volumes of the classics in his knapsack, and about nine 
thalers in his pocket. His journey, however, was destined to take a 
different direction. "The third night I spent at Bach," writes he, "and 
here the Landgrave of Cassel, the great broker of men of the time, 
undertook through his recruiting officers, and in spite of my 
protestations, the care of my future quarters on the road to Ziegenhayn, 
to Cassel, and thence to the New World." ("Autobiography.")

"I was brought under arrest to Ziegenhayn, where I found many companions 
in misfortune from all parts of the country. There we waited to be sent to 
America in the spring, after Faucitt should have inspected us. I gave 
myself up to my fate, and tried to make the best of it, bad as it might 
be. We stayed a long time at Ziegenhayn (Ziegenhayn was an unhealthy 
place, where most of the men fell sick, of scurvy or itch. Seume's article 
in Archenholtz's Magazine, 1789) before the necessary number of recruits 
was brought together from the plough, the highways, and the recruiting 
stations. The story of those times is well known. No one was safe from the 
grip of the seller of souls. Persuasion, cunning, deception, force - all 
served. No one asked what means were used to the damnable end. Strangers 
of all kinds were arrested, imprisoned, sent off. They tore up my academic 
matriculation papers, as being the only instrument by which I could prove 
my identity. At last I fretted no more. One can live anywhere. You can 
stand what so many do. The idea of crossing the ocean was inviting enough 
to a young fellow; and there were things worth seeing on the other side. 
So I reflected. While we were at Ziegenhayn old General Gore (Von Gohr) 
employed me in writing, and treated me very kindly. Here was an 
indescribable lot of human beings brought together, good and bad, and 
others that were both by turns. My comrades were a runaway son of the 
Muses from Jena, a bankrupt tradesman from Vienna, a fringemaker from 
Hanover, a discharged secretary of the post-office from Gotha, a monk from 
Warzburg, an upper steward from Meinungen, a Prussian sergeant of hussars, 
a cashiered Hessian major from the fortress itself, and others of like 
stamp. You can imagine that there was entertainment enough, and a mere 
sketch of the lives of these gentry would make amusing and instructive 
reading."

A plot was gotten up among this rabble. Seume was offered the command of 
the conspirators, but, by the advice of an old sergeant, declined the 
dangerous honor. The mutineers were to rise in the night, surprise the 
guard and take their weapons, cut down such as opposed them, spike the 
cannon, lock up the officers at headquarters, and march fifteen hundred 
strong across the frontier, which was only a few miles away. The plot was 
betrayed; the ringleaders were arrested, Seume among them. He was soon 
released, however, for too many were implicated to allow the punishment of 
all concerned. "The trial went on," he says; "two were condemned to the 
gallows, as I should certainly have been, had not the old Prussian 
sergeant-major saved me. The remainder had to run the gantlet a great many 
times, from thirty-six down to twelve. It was a terrible butchery. The 
candidates for the gallows were pardoned, after suffering the fear of 
death under that instrument, but had to run the gantlet thirty-six times, 
and were sent to Cassel to be kept in irons at the mercy of the prince. 
'For an indefinite time,' and 'at mercy' were then equivalent expressions, 
and meant 'forever, without release.' At least, the mercy of the prince 
was an affair that no one wanted to have anything to do with. More than 
thirty were terribly treated in this way, and many, of whom I was one, 
were let off only because too many of the accomplices would have had to be 
punished. Some came out of prison when we marched away, for reasons which 
were easy to understand; for a fellow that is in irons at Cassel is not 
paid for by the British." (Autobiography)

With troops collected as these were, desertion was necessarily common. The 
military service was dreaded, and in the smaller states a successful run 
of a few miles would take the deserter beyond the frontier. The people 
sympathized with him, and would gladly have helped him had they not been 
restrained by severe punishments. These, however, were not wanting. In 
Wurtemberg, when the alarm was given, the parish must instantly rise and 
occupy roads, paths, and bridges for twenty-four hours, or until the 
fugitive was caught. Should he escape, the place must furnish a substitute 
as tall as the deserter, and the sons of the principal man of the village 
were first liable. This order was to be read every month from the pulpit. 
Whoever helped a deserter lost his civil rights, and was imprisoned with 
hard labor and flogged in prison. The laws of Hesse-Cassel appear to have 
been a little less savage. Peasants arresting a deserter received a ducat; 
but if the fugitive passed through a village without being arrested, the 
village was liable to pay for him. Every soldier going more than a mile 
from his garrison was to be furnished with a pass, and all persons meeting 
him at a greater distance from home were required to demand it (Reglement 
von der Infanterie, Theil ii. tit. vi.) A characteristic incident occurred 
in 1783. A Prussian recruiting officer and a Prussian soldier's wife 
induced an Anspach soldier to desert for the sake of re-enlisting in the 
Prussian army. They were intercepted by the Anspach authorities. The woman 
was hanged; the officer was obliged to be present at the execution and was 
then locked up in a fortress. The deserter seems to have escaped with his 
life, being a valuable merchantable commodity (Lang, "Geschichte des 
vorletzten Markgrafen," p. 92.)

Having enlisted his recruits, perhaps under a foreign jurisdiction, the 
officer, or under-officer, was obliged to get them to his garrison. This 
would afford, of course, opportunities for escape; and Kapp quotes, from a 
book printed in Berlin as late as 1805, the precautions to be taken 
against this danger. The under-officer who is escorting a recruit must 
wear sword and pistol. He must make the recruit walk in front of him, 
never let him come too near, and warn him that a single false step may 
cost him his life. He must avoid large towns, and places where the recruit 
has previously served, as much as possible. It is also desirable to avoid 
the place where the recruit was born. They must spend the night at inns 
where the landlord is known to be well-disposed to recruiting officers, 
and sure to side with them, and not with their victim. The recruit and the 
officer must both undress, and their clothes be given to the landlord for 
safe keeping. Inns where recruits are to spend the night must have a 
separate room for the purpose; if possible, up-stairs, and with barred 
windows. A light must be kept burning all night, and the under-officer 
must give up his weapons to the landlord, lest the recruit should get them 
away from him and use them against him in the night. In the morning he 
must get them back, see to the loading and priming, dress himself, and be 
ready for his journey before the clothes of the recruit are brought to 
him. The recruit must enter a house, or a room, first; he must come out 
last. At meals he must sit behind the table, next the wall. If he shows 
signs of being troublesome, the straps and buttons must be cut from his 
breeches, and he must hold them up with his hands.

A good dog, trained to the business, will be very useful to an under-
officer under such circumstances.

If an under-officer is unfortunately obliged to kill or wound a recruit he 
must bring a paper from the local magistrate. But no document will excuse 
the escape of a recruit, an accident which the Prussian military 
imagination refuses to consider ever necessary.

The men collected to serve in America were of various qualities from a 
military point of view. They were all received and examined by an English 
commissioner, generally by Colonel Faucitt, who had negotiated the 
treaties, at the seaports before shipment, and while some of the regiments 
were pronounced excellent, others were found to be partly made up of old 
men and boys, unfit to endure the fatigues of a campaign. Some soldiers 
were rejected for these causes, especially in the latter years of the war, 
when good men were growing harder to get in many of the states. It is not 
easy, from the documents before me, to judge what chance a private soldier 
had of promotion from the ranks. Seume writes that he himself had hopes of 
promotion, which were shattered by the ending of the war, as in time of 
peace no one who was not noble could aspire to be anything more than a 
sergeant-major. Kapp speaks of the officers as belonging mostly to the 
lower nobility. The list of Hessian officers in 1779 does not bear out 
these statements. It appears that at that time more than one half of the 
officers were not noble, nobility being judged by the presence, or 
absence, of the mystic particle von.

We come at last to the character of the officers. Their education was 
generally confined to a limited a-mount of writing and a little barbarous 
French. They understood neither the cause for which the Americans were 
fighting, nor, at first, the language in which the statesmen of both 
contending parties argued their different claims. But had they understood 
far more than they did, their feelings would still have been on the side 
of royal prerogative against popular rights. I can recall no instance in 
which one of the German officers engaged in this war uses any expression 
showing him to have been in sympathy with the liberal intellectual 
movement of the eighteenth century. This conservatism was not necessary to 
make them go where they were ordered, nor did it prevent some of them from 
heartily wishing themselves at home again after a campaign or two in 
America. Once there, we find them talking about the despotism of Congress. 
This absurd idea was probably suggested to them by the English, and was 
taken up by the anti-American press in Germany. There is little doubt, 
too, that many, both of the officers and soldiers, looked forward with 
pleasure to active employment in America, if only to break up the monotony 
of garrison duty.

In spite of the injustice with which the rank and file had been treated, 
there are signs that many of these involuntary volunteers were not such 
bad fellows after all. The Germans have their fair share of those virtues 
which every nation is fond of claiming as its peculiar birthright; 
honesty, courage, kindliness. The motley mass had been shaped and welded 
by a rigorous, if often cruel, discipline. They could not wipe out, to 
American eyes, the shame of their mercenary calling. But the shame fairly 
belonged to their princes, and not to themselves. In the field, or in 
captivity, they often deserved and sometimes obtained the respect of their 
opponents. Many of them became, in the end, citizens of the republic they 
were sent to destroy.