LVII. CHAP. a more dreadful monarchy over the seas than ever had been known; that she would find herself, as formerly, engaged in a baleful war with France, her most powerful neighbor and her natural ally in the defence of the liberty of commerce; that a war between Britain and France would bring advantage to the navigation of the republic, if she would but maintain her neutrality; that she had never derived any benefit from a close alliance with England; that, in the war of succession, which gave to that power the key to the Mediterranean, she had nothing for her share but the total waste of her forces and her treasure; that she had religiously observed her treaties, and yet England denied her the stipulated freedom of merchandise in free bottoms, and searched and arbitrarily confiscated her ships. Besides, janizaries should be hired to subdue the colonists rather than the troops of a free state. Why should a nation who have themselves borne the title of rebels and freed themselves from oppression by the edge of their swords, employ their troops in crushing what some were pleased to call a rebellion of the Americans, who yet were an example and encouragement to all nations, worthy of the esteem of the whole world as brave men, defending with moderation and with intrepidity the rights which God and not the British legislature gave them as men! These ideas, once set in motion, were sure to win the day; but the states of Overyssell suppressed all explicit declarations against England; and the states general, wishing to avoid every appearance of offensive discourtesy, at last consented to lend the brigade, but only on the condition that it never should LVII. be used out of Europe. This was in fact a refusal; CHAP. the brigade was never accepted by the English, who, during the tardy course of the discussion, had obtained supplies of men from Germany. That empire had never recovered from the disorganization occasioned by the thirty years' war; when military service became a trade, and mercenary troops took the place of lieges, till the more efficient system of standing armies superseded the use of adventurers. In this way the medieval liberties disappeared; in the great monarchies, the people by their numbers formed a counterpoise to absolute monarchy: in the smaller principalities the weight of the commons was insufficient to bear up against their rulers; the sentiment of patriotism was merged in the obedience of the soldier, who learned that he had a master, but not that he had a country; and electors and landgraves and reigning dukes assumed the right of engaging in wars for their personal profit, and hiring out their troops according to their own pleasure. The custom became so general that, for the gain of their princes, and pay and plunder for themselves, German troops were engaged in every great contest that raged from Poland. to Lisbon, from the North Sea to Naples; and were sometimes arrayed in the same battle on opposite sides. At peace the disbanded supernumeraries lounged about the land, forming an unemployed body, from which the hope of high wages and booty could at any time raise up armed bands. So soon as it became known that the king of England, unable to supply the losses in his regiments by enlistments within his own realm, desired to draw recruits from Germany, crowds of adventurers, eager LVII. CHAP. to profit by his wants, volunteered to procure the levies he might need. He had scruples about accepting their offers, saying: "The giving commissions to German officers to get men, in plain English amounts to making me a kidnapper, which I cannot think a very honorable occupation;" but he consented that a contract should be made with a Hanoverian lieutenant colonel for raising four thousand recruits in Germany without loss of time; he granted also the use of his electoral dominions and that "assistance and support of his field marshal which was indispensably necessary to the execution of the undertaking.” In those days no reciprocal comity restrained the princes from tempting each other's soldiers to desert; and a larger bounty, higher wages, and the undefined prospect of amassing spoils in the "el dorado" of America, readily attracted the vagabond veterans of former wars to the British standard. The kings of France had long been accustomed, with the consent of the cantons, to raise troops in Switzerland, and had used the permission so freely, that the total sum of their Swiss levies in three hundred years, was computed at more than a million of men. The German diet had prohibited the system; the court of Vienna was obliged, for the sake of appearances, to write to the free cities and several of the states of the empire, that "Great Britain had no more connection with the empire than Russia or Spain, neither of which powers was permitted to recruit within its limits;" but she was only required to throw gauze over her design; her contractor was very soon ready with a small instalment of a hundred and fifty men; and promised rapid success when the enterprise LVII. should get a little better into train. Moreover the CHAP. prince bishop of Liege and the elector of Cologne consented to shut their eyes to the presence of English agents, who also had recruiting stations in Neuwied and at Frankfort. The undertaking was prohibited by the laws of nations and of the empire; the British ministers therefore instructed their diplomatic representative at the small courts to give all possible aid to the execution of the service, but not officially to implicate his government. In this way thousands of levies were obtained to fill up British regiments, which had been thinned by battle, sickness, and desertion. But the wants of the ministry required more considerable negotiations with German princes. It was hoped that the duke of Brunswick, if well disposed, could supply at least three thousand men, and the landgrave of Hesse Cassel five thousand; in November, 1775, Suffolk thus instructed Colonel Faucitt, the British agent: "Your point is to get as many as you can; I own to you my own hopes are not very sanguine in the business you are going upon; therefore the less you act ministerially before you see a reasonable prospect of succeeding, the better. Get as many men as you can; it will be much to your credit to procure the most moderate terms, though expense is not so much the object in the present emergency as in ordinary cases. Great activity is necessary, as the king is extremely anxious; and you are to send one of two messengers from each place, Brunswick and Cassel, the moment you know whether troops can be procured or not, without waiting for the proposal of terms." There was no occasion for anxiety; more than LVII. CHAP. one little prince hurried to offer troops. "I shall regard it as a favor," wrote the Prince of Waldeck, "if the king will accept a regiment of six hundred men, composed of officers and soldiers, who, like their prince, will certainly demand nothing better than to find an opportunity of sacrificing themselves for his majesty." The offer was eagerly accepted. On the twenty fourth of November, Faucitt, having received his instructions at Stade, set off on his mission; but the nights were so dark and the roads so bad, that it required five days to reach Brunswick. Charles, the reigning duke, was at that time about sixty three. During the forty years of his rule, the spendthrift had squandered a loan of twelve millions of thalers, beside the millions of his revenue, on his Italian opera, his corps of French dancers, his theatre, journeys, mistresses, and gaming, his experiments in alchemy, but most of all on his little army, which now, in his decrepit age, it was his chief pride to review. Within the last three years, a new prime minister had improved the condition of his finances; at the same time Prince Ferdinand, the heir apparent, had been admitted as co-regent. In 1764 Ferdinand had married Augusta, a sister of George the Third, receiving with her a dowry of eighty thousand pounds beside an annuity of eight thousand more, chargeable on the revenues of Ireland and Hanover. His education had been in part confided to Jerusalem, a clergyman who neither had the old fashioned faith, nor the modern want of it; and his governor had been indulgent to the vices of his youth. From Frederic of Prussia, his uncle, he adopted not disinterested nationality, but scepticism, with which he mixed |