Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/142

 124 presence of the soldiers should not weigh too heavily on the inhabitants, unless on those who had shown sympathy with the rebels. Strict discipline was maintained. The soldiers received rations, and cut their own firewood in the forest. The labor of hauling the wood when cut, and of cooking, seems to have been laid on the inhabitants. The soldiers were provided with long trousers of thick cloth, coming up high on the body, and warm mittens and hoods.

The second division of Brunswickers had arrived in Canada in September, after a long and stormy passage. Officers and men had at last been put on short rations of musty food. When the division, of about two thousand soldiers, arrived in Quebec, nineteen men had died and one hundred and thirty-one were sick of the scurvy.

The long Canadian winter presently set in. It was employed by Riedesel in drilling his troops when the weather would allow it, and especially in practising them in shooting. He had noticed that the Americans were better marksmen than the Germans, and he exerted himself to remedy this deficiency of his soldiers. He travelled over eighteen hundred miles in the course of the winter in a sleigh, visiting his scattered detachments, and waiting on General Carleton in Quebec and Montreal. He was at the former place on the 31st of December, 1776, when a solemn service was held in the cathedral to celebrate the deliverance of the city from Arnold and Montgomery on that day of the preceding year. The service was conducted by the bishop, and eight unfortunate Canadians had to do open penance, with halters round their necks, and beg