nd the father of American children. Captain
von der Lith, in a pamphlet on the "Campaign of the Hessians in America,"
says the soldiers welcomed the news of the departure for that land of
promise. Lieutenant-Colonel Grebe says that young men left school and
college and office and trade to go to America with the Hessian army.
Faucit was surprised at the readiness with which the men went on board
ship, singing and hurrahing for the Elector. He reported to the Elector
that he could do anything with such men. Some regiments did not lose a
single man. So, too, with the Anspach troops; their Lieutenant-Colonels
von Gall and von Kreuzburg and other officers were surprised at the
light-hearted soldiers, who acted as if they were on a pleasure tour. The
Prussian General von Gaudi wrote to the Elector that by order of his King
he had sent clever recruiting officers to try to tempt the Hessian
soldiers to leave and go into the Prussian service, but he did not succeed
in getting a single man. Not a Hessian would leave his colors, for under
them they were satisfied, got high pay, and were going to America. Another
Prussian, General Valentini, says the Hessian troops learned much that was
of value in their campaign in America, and helped to renew the prosperity
of their native country and improve its condition.

Prince Charles of Hesse reported that in the war of the Bavarian
Succession he lost out of his Prussian division ten thousand men in two
months by desertion. The Hessian army lost only eight per cent. in ten
years. It is utterly untrue that when the Hessian troops were under orders
to go to America, desertion by crowds fleeing into Hungary and Poland was
prevented only by threatening the fathers with chains and the mothers with
prison, as Kapp seriously writes.

Kapp says that the Hessian soldiers who returned home at the end of their
service received as a reward half a month's pay, but the Elector received
from England a whole month's pay. Did he put the other half in his own
pocket, or did he pay it all, as well as the extra half month's pay out of
his own pocket, over to his soldiers? The answer is, that there is a great
difference between the allowance of a year's subsidy after the peace to
the treasury of Hesse as compensation, and the voluntary gift, by the
Elector, to the foreign soldiers who had enlisted in his service, of extra
pay as reward for good conduct. They had no claim, yet the Elector,
following the English