Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/202

 182 that they were burned also. He concealed them until the prisoners had been for some time in Cambridge, when the baroness was taken into the secret. Frau von Riedesel, with the help of a “very honorable tailor,” sewed the colors up in a mattress, and an officer was sent to New York through the lines, on some pretence, who took the mattress with him as part of his bedding. The Brunswick colors were thus saved. Burgoyne had given his word of honor that the officers should not carry off any of the king's property in their private baggage. Perhaps the standards were thought to belong to the Duke of Brunswick, and not to the king, who had only hired them along with their defenders; or, perhaps, Riedesel was not careful of Burgoyne's honor.

After laying down their arms, the Brunswickers passed through the American camp, where the conquering army was drawn up to receive them. Not a regiment was properly uniformed, but every man was in the clothes he wore in the fields, at church, or at the ale-house. But they stood like soldiers, in good order, and with a military appearance very striking to the German officers. “The men stood so still that we were filled with astonishment,” writes one; “not a man made a motion to speak with his neighbor. Moreover, kindly nature had made all the men standing in the ranks so slender, so handsome, so sinewy, that it was a pleasure to look at them, and we all wondered at the sight of so well-made a people. . . . In truth, English America surpasses most parts of Europe in the size and beauty of its men.”