Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/133

 Rh robust enough for the climate over there. I therefore write to him to come here for a while, and confer the command ad interim over my troops in America on yourself.” Heister quite understood that he was in disgrace, and died within two months after reaching Cassel, of sorrow and disappointment.

In the early spring of 1777 the actual possessions of the King of England on the soil of the United States may be summed up as follows: In the State of New York, the islands in the harbor, and perhaps a little piece of Westchester County, near King's Bridge. In New Jersey, Amboy, New Brunswick, and Paulus Hook. In Rhode Island, the actual island. But the importance of these posts was out of all proportion to their extent. Sir William Howe commanded an army, small, indeed, as modern armies are reckoned, but large enough to outnumber that of Washington, and composed of disciplined troops, many of them veterans, while the American force was a shifting mass, principally made up of militia. Congress had voted, on one of the last days of 1776, that Washington be allowed to raise, organize, and officer sixteen battalions of infantry, three thousand light horsemen, three regiments of artillery, and a corps of engineers. But these troops, the first army of the United States, as such, together with the eighty-eight battalions to be furnished at the same time by the several states, as yet existed principally on paper. On the 14th of March, 1777, Washington writes to