swick, three thousand
nine hundred and a small body of cavalry; and from the reigning Count
of Hanau, a corps six hundred and sixty strong. These constituted the
"foreign troops" which England sent to America with her own soldiers
for the campaign of 1776.

The plans for the campaign were laid out on a scale corresponding with
the preparations. When Sir William Howe was sent out to reinforce
General Gage at Boston, in the spring of 1775, it was assumed by the
Ministry that operations would be confined to that quarter, and that
if Massachusetts were once subdued there would be nothing to fear
elsewhere. But the continued siege of Boston changed the military
status. Howe was completely locked in, and could effect nothing. The
necessity of transferring the seat of war to a larger field became
apparent after Bunker Hill, and military plans were broached and
discussed in the Cabinet, in the army, and in Parliament. Lord
Barrington, who well knew that men enough could not be had from
England to conquer the colonies, advocated operations by sea. An
effective blockade of the entire American coast, depriving the
colonists of their trade, might, in his view, bring them to terms. Mr.
Innes, in the House, proposed securing a strong foothold in the south,
below the Delaware, and shutting up the northern ports with the fleet.
But the basis of the plan adopted appears to have been that suggested
by Burgoyne at Boston in the summer of 1775, and by Howe in January,
1776. "If the continent," wrote the former to Lord Rochfort, Secretary
of State for the Colonies, "is to be subdued by arms, his Majesty's
councils will find, I am persuaded, the proper expedients; but I speak
confidently as a soldier, because I speak the sentiments of those who
know America best, that you can have no prospect of bringing the war
to a speedy conclusion with any force that Great Britain and Ireland
can supply. A large army of foreign troops such as might be hired, to
begin their operations up the Hudson River; another army, composed
partly of old disciplined troops and partly of Canadians, to act from
Canada; a large levy of Indians, and a supply of arms for the blacks
to awe the southern provinces, conjointly with detachments of
regulars; and a numerous fleet to sweep the whole coast, might
possibly do the business in one campaign."[8] To Lord Dartmouth, Howe
represented that with an army of twenty thousand men, twelve thousand
of whom should hold New York,