cts. The modern and advanced German prefers
Mirabeau to Moser,--vice to virtue. The threats of that French agitator
against Germany have no more historical value than the declamation of
Victor Hugo during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. Moser's was the
general opinion of his time. As to the English offer, the Elector was
personally against taking part in the war: he wanted peace to restore
prosperity to the land, to which he was contributing freely out of his own
means, while he took almost nothing for his own wants. He objected to
sending the army, composed almost entirely of his own subjects, far away,
and if he had anticipated a seven years' struggle he would never have
consented. His Parliament was anxious to hasten the payment of the balance
due by England, which had only of late quickened its remittances. Without
a new English alliance it would be long before the country could recover
from the exhaustion of the Seven Years' War. Prussia had recouped its
exhausted treasury by the booty of the Polish division in 1772. England's
offer could not be refused. At that time Hesse was tempted by an offer of
a share of the Polish treasure in return for a loan of Hessian troops to
Prussia, which it sturdily rejected.

As far back as 1757 the King of Prussia had asked leave to buy eight
hundred Hessian recruits to take the place of that number of Saxon
Catholic prisoners of war, who had been forced into the Prussian service
to turn against their own king and country and had all escaped; but the
old Elector of Hesse peremptorily refused permission. Prussia denounced
the treaty by which the Hessian army served as allies of the British, but
wanted to buy the individual soldiers as so many slaves. The young Elector
openly disapproved the partition of Poland and refused any offer from
Prussia. The feeling through Hesse-Cassel was strongly against Prussia and
just as strongly friendly to England, and this was clearly shown in the
debates and action of the Hessian Parliament and in the reports of the
Hessian representative in London, Schlieffen. The request of England was
finally agreed to. The Hessian troops went to America with the full
approval of their country, in accordance with the wishes of its legal
representatives, in joyful courage, bent on winning new laurels at the
side of their old allies.

The first meeting with the enemy, soon after the landing of the first
Hessian division under Lieutenant-General Heister, was a