e
themselves amends by appropriating whatever they could lay their hands
upon. * * The conduct of the Hessians was extremely offensive to the
British commanders, but they were too powerful a body to restrain by
compulsion, as they composed almost one-half of the army.
Notwithstanding the prudence and steadiness with which General Howe
conducted himself upon this emergency, it was not possible to restrain
their excesses, nor even prevent them from spreading among the English
troops in a degree to which they would not have certainly been carried
had they not such examples for a plea.

"The depredations of the Hessians grew at last, it was said, so
enormous, that the spoils they were loaded with became an absolute
incumbrance to them, and a frequent impediment to the discharge of their
military duties.

"The desolation of the Jerseys was one of the consequences of this
spirit of rapine. The Americans who adhered to Britain attributed to it
the subsequent decline of the British cause in these and other parts. As
the devastation was extended indiscriminately to friend and foe, it
equally exasperated both parties; it confirmed the enmity of the one,
and raised up a new enemy in the other; and it injured the British
interest in all the colonies." (Dr. Andrews' History of the Late War,
Vol. II., Chaps. xvii. and xxii., pp. 53, 54-268, 269.)

Dr. Andrews adds, in another place, that--

"The resentment occasioned by the depredations that had been carried on
in the Jerseys had left few, if any, friends to Britain in that
province. The dread of seeing those plunderers return, who had spared
neither friend nor foe, rendered all parties averse to the cause in
which they were employed. To this it was owing that their motions were
observed with such extreme vigilance, that they stood little or no
chance of succeeding in any of their enterprises. So many had suffered
through them, that there was no deficiency of spies to give instant
information of whatever they were suspected to have in view; and as much
mischief was done them by such as acted secretly from motives of private
revenge, as by those who took an open part against them in the field."
(Dr. Andrews' History of the American War, etc., Vol. II., Chap, xxiii.,
pp. 301, 302.)]

[Footnote 72: "At the north, the King called to mind that he might 'rely
upon the attachment of his faithful allies, the Six Nations of Indians,'
and he turned to them for immediate assistance. To in