Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/57

pleasure to active employment in America, if only to break up the monotony of garrison duty. In spite of the injustice with which the rank and file had been treated, there are signs that many of these involuntary volunteers were not such bad fellows after all. The Germans have their fair share of those virtues which every nation is fond of claiming as its peculiar birthright; honesty, courage, kindliness. The motley mass had been shaped and welded by a rigorous, if often cruel discipline. They could not wipe out, to American eyes, the shame of their mercenary calling. But the shame fairly belonged to their princes, and not to themselves. In the field, or in captivity, they often deserved and sometimes obtained the respect of their opponents. Many of them became, in the end, citizens of the republic they were sent to destroy.