for the benefit of his people, and that these approved
of the transaction. Into the first contention I do not
propose to enter further than is necessary to point
out its irrelevance. Had the Landgrave gone into the
Revolutionary War on its merits, an argument drawn
from the depravity of the rebels and the wickedness
of rebellion would have been pertinent. It has no
force when applied to a prince who, in accordance
with a policy that was hereditary in his dynasty, let
out his troops to the highest bidder. As to the second
argument, it is true that public morality in the matter
of the employment of mercenaries was and is deplorably
loose. A nation engaged in a great struggle can
hardly be expected not to take help where it can find
it. The individual soldier of fortune has long been
looked on with too much indulgence. But to be a
soldier of fortune by proxy, to coin money out of other
people's blood, and by perils which he who profits by
them does not share, has never been considered a
manly occupation; and those who say that the
Hessian people approved of Landgrave Frederick's
bargains condemn his subjects without excusing himself.
A better argument was found by his minister, Schlieffen,
in the close connection between the English court
and the courts of Hesse and Brunswick. The American
provinces might conceivably be inherited by a Hessian
prince. Did we, therefore, see Hessian soldiers serving
in English pay against American rebels without
pecuniary compensation to the Landgrave, we might
believe that they were sent for political reasons. This
argument loses its force in the face of the subsidies.
The Landgrave entered into a sordid bargain, and it is
in the light of this bargain that he must be judged.
Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/322
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292
THE HESSIANS.