glorious one for
his troops. At Flatbush Washington's army was driven at the point of the
bayonet almost to destruction, most of the American leaders captured, and
nearly all their flags taken. The Hessian grenadiers who at Minden had
attacked the French cavalry with the bayonet had lost nothing of the vigor
they had shown in the Seven Years' War.

The war might have been finished in one campaign and the loss of the
Colonies prevented, for at least two-thirds of the population of America
looked on old England as the true source of liberty, but were coerced by
the rebellious minority. But the English commander, Lord Howe, was a Whig,
and forbade Heister's pursuit and use of his victory. Howe ordered
defensive lines to be fortified against the broken force of Washington's
army. This turned the tables. Washington enlisted a new army, largely by
the promise of liberal head-money to recruits, and France and Spain
appeared on the scene. The Yankees alone never could have achieved their
independence. The Colonies then had only two and a half million white
population. The Americans of to-day are the children of later immigrants,
to a great extent the grandchildren of the very men who resisted the
causeless rebellion, and even of those who fought against it. The anger of
the Yankees wreaked itself on their adversaries by publishing the greatest
untruths, the shallowest, idlest lies, that at first were unnoticed in
Germany, but gradually, especially after the French Revolution, passed
into German reactionary literature. These are now the stock in trade of
modern historical writers. In spite of clear proof from the Hessian
archives, these vamped-up stories are repeated and renewed.

England paid into the Hessian state treasury, not to the Elector himself,
between 1776 and 1783, besides indirect expenses, 21,276,778 thalers as
subsidy money, and of this 2,203,003 thalers were arrears from the Seven
Years' War. Of this amount part went to pay the difference between the war
footing and the peace footing expense of the Hessian army for eight years.
The soldiers received the high English pay without deduction, often in
gold, as is shown by reports, pay lists, and money accounts. The
exceptions to the advantage of the war-chest were very rare, and for these
the troops gained in a larger proportion at home. The wealth of the
Hessian army in America is shown by the fact that in the first three and a
half years of the war the common soldie