Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/144



Baroness Riedesel had started to join her husband, bringing with her her three little daughters, of whom the oldest was but four years and nine months old, and the youngest an infant of ten weeks. The journey from Germany to Canada in those days was no light matter, nor was it free from imaginary as well as actual perils. “Not only did people tell me of the dangers of the sea,” writes Frau von Riedesel, “but they also said that we must take care not to be eaten by the savages, and that people in America lived on horseflesh and cats. But all this frightened me less than the thought of coming to a land where I did not understand the language. However, I had made up my mind to everything, and the idea of following my husband and doing my duty held me up through the whole course of my journey.” The baroness left Wolfenbüttel, near Brunswick, on the 14th of May, 1776, and travelled by Calais to England. “At Maestricht I was warned to be on my guard, because the roads were very unsafe on account of highwaymen. A hundred and thirty of these had been hanged, or otherwise executed, in the course of the last fortnight, but there were more than four times as many still about. When taken they were immediately strung up without further ceremony on the roads