Certainly the Americans did not think he was
half-hearted.
The British soldier fought indeed with more resolute
determination than did the hired auxiliary at his side. These
German troops played a notable part in the war. The despotic
princes of the lesser German states were accustomed to sell the
services of their troops. Despotic Russia, too, was a likely
field for such enterprise. When, however, it was proposed to the
Empress Catherine II that she should furnish twenty thousand men
for service in America she retorted with the sage advice that it
was England's true interest to settle the quarrel in America
without war. Germany was left as the recruiting field. British
efforts to enlist Germans as volunteers in her own army were
promptly checked by the German rulers and it was necessary
literally to buy the troops from their princes. One-fourth of the
able-bodied men of Hesse-Cassel were shipped to America. They
received four times the rate of pay at home and their ruler
received in addition some half million dollars a year. The men
suffered terribly and some died of sickness for the homes to
which thousands of them never returned. German generals, such as
Knyphausen and Riedesel, gave the British sincere and effective
service.
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