ws that this was
not true, for a large proportion of the officers were plain citizens, not
of noble families. At this very time Frederick of Prussia said publicly
that plain citizens had not the proper feeling of honor necessary to make
good officers. Seume's own colonel, Hatzfeld, and Huth, Rall, Kellermann,
Ewald, all men of note and high command, were not nobles, but plain
citizens. Seume's whole service as a Hessian soldier was only for two
years. During this time he rose from the ranks to corporal, then to
quarter-master, and finally to sergeant, and as he took his discharge in
that grade, his complaints are much more discreditable than if he had
remained in the ranks,--he perjured himself trebly by deserting. Why did
he desert? When the returning troops landed at Bremerlehe they heard that
the soldiers who were not natives of Hesse must either re-enlist or be
discharged with half a month's pay. The Hessian soldiers, of course,
returned to the pay and allowances of the peace footing.

Hessian soldiers were so well treated that in the last century there was
no other army with so few deserters. Why, then, did Seume desert? Why,
eight days before the return to Cassel, did he throw away his good name
and his pay and his property? Because in a fit of drunkenness he had made
himself liable to sharp punishment for his neglect of duty as commissary
sergeant, and for fear of the consequences he fled. In ordinary conditions
he would never have abandoned the Hessian colors. He makes his fault worse
by lying,--pretending that he and others enlisted from Prussian territory
were afraid that they would be returned to Prussia and be forced to the
hard service in its ranks, and this he says although he knew perfectly
well that there was an order published at Bremerlehe which was perfect
protection for him and men in exactly his position. Having told one
falsehood as to his reason for deserting, he adds another to justify the
first, and thus puts himself clearly beyond the pale of credit for any of
his statements. He wants to pose as a martyr, and to do so vamps up
unfounded charges against the Elector of Hesse.

Between 1783 and 1810 Seume thought it more to his credit to try to forget
and make others forget that he voluntarily entered the Hessian service,
and pretended that he had been forced into it, as a palliation for serving
against the Yankees, and boasted of his desertion, as if that, too, was to
his credit. He pretends to g