Chapter XXIV.
CONCLUSION.
Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown decided the
fate of the Revolutionary War. The armies remained
quiet through the winter, and in the spring of 1782
General Clinton and General von Knyphausen returned
to Europe. Sir Guy Carleton assumed the command
in New York, and Lieutenant-general von Lossberg
became chief of the Hessian division. On the 14th of
December, 1782, Charleston was evacuated, and on the
25th of November, 1783, two years after the fall of
Yorktown, the last Hessians sailed down the Bay of
New York. “About two in the afternoon we weighed
anchor,” says the journal of the Jäger Corps, “and as
the fleet fell down to Staten Island we saw the American
flag hoisted on several houses. None was raised
on Fort George, however. At sunset we passed Sandy
Hook, and at nightfall the land disappeared from our
sight.”
The force of German mercenaries which England maintained in America from 1776 to 1783 averaged not very far from twenty thousand men. In the course of that time about thirty thousand soldiers were brought over, and seventeen thousand three hundred and thirteen returned to Germany when the war was ended. For the services of these men England paid in levy-money and subsidies to the princes more than
