ry over the claims for
compensation which ran up to millions. The greater part was absolutely
rejected, much reduced to a six per cent. basis, and Schlieffen at last
forced to accept L41,820 for the actual outlay of 300,000 thalers for
hospital expenses. No doubt the foundation of the large savings of the
Hessian state treasury and of the Elector was the money obtained as
subsidy for the American war. The Elector raised his country from poverty
by using this money for the improvement of his capital and its great
neighboring palace, for royal roads, for parks and open places, for
churches, museums, lyceums, and seminaries, theatres, city halls,
hospitals, art galleries, and schools, medical colleges, infants' and
orphans' homes, libraries, and the two universities, Marburg and Rinteln,
for opera and chapel. The source of all this expenditure was of course
the English subsidies. The charge that the Elector had laid aside
56,000,000 as his private fortune is clearly disproved by the fact that in
1831 the whole estate of the Elector amounted to only 14,000,000 to
16,000,000, although Kapp says the Elector Frederick left 60,000,000,
mostly subsidy money, but partly profit on lotteries, yet the official
records show that during the fourteen years of the lottery the whole
profit was only 93,000 thalers. The accounts show that in 1775 the
treasury had to its credit in all 4,549,925 thalers, much in doubtful
claims growing out of the earlier wars, and, in 1785, at the death of
Elector Frederick, it had 12,473,000 thalers. In other words, after the
Seven Years' War this little country of 300,000 people earned an average
of 1,000,000 thalers a year by subsidies, and by the American war it was
enabled to save 18,000,000, out of which much was spent in public
improvements. England was very slow to admit its liability for the losses
inflicted on Hesse as its ally in the Seven Years' War, but it soon
learned to value and pay generously for its help in supplying a fine body
of troops for its American war.

At the outbreak of the American war England owed Hesse 10,143,286 thalers
in arrears for its services since 1764, of which 2,559,000 was due in
1760, making the total Hessian debt on the former date 7,425,965 thalers.
England paid 900,000 thalers first, and later on 2,220,000 thalers, and
Hesse still claimed L41,820 for hospital expenses; but there was still due
to Hesse 3,128,000 thalers for its increased debt, and 300,000 for losses