Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/187

 Rh 1st. Whether a treaty finally arranged by commissioners with full powers, which the general had promised to sign as soon as commissioners should have removed all difficulties, could honorably be broken?

2d. Whether the news received was sufficiently certain to be a motive for breaking off an agreement which, considering the position, was so favorable? and

3d. Whether the army was in sufficiently good spirits to defend its present position to the last man?

On the first of these questions fourteen officers, against eight, were of opinion that the agreement could not honorably be broken off. As to the second, opinions were divided. Those who answered in the negative argued that the deserter was speaking only from hearsay, and that even if Sir Henry Clinton were at Esopus, the distance thence was so great that his approach could not help the army in its present condition. To the third question all officers from the left wing answered in the affirmative, but those from the centre and right said that although their soldiers would fight with great valor if led against the enemy, yet they were so well aware of the weakness of their position, that they might not do as well if attacked. As the Brunswick troops principally occupied the centre and right of the line, it is to this declaration of their officers that Burgoyne probably refers when he speaks in a private letter of “the Germans dispirited, and ready to club their arms at the first fire.” Still hoping to gain time, Burgoyne tried one pretext more. He wrote on the morning of the 16th to General Gates, saying that he had heard from deserters