Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/208

 188 who accompanied us, were some of them shoemakers,” writes Frau von Riedesel, “and on the days we halted made boots for our officers, or even mended the shoes of our soldiers. They set a great value on coined money, which was very scarce among them. The boots of one of our officers were badly torn. He saw that an American general had on a good pair, and said to him, for a joke: ‘I would give you a guinea for them.’ The general immediately got off his horse, gave up his boots, took the guinea, and mounted again in the officer's torn pair.” General von Riedesel's temper was at this time imbittered by ill-health and misfortune. It is to this that we must attribute the judgment he passes on the Americans. Indeed, he is quoted as saying that he had met but one American officer in Cambridge whom he respected. Of the members of the General Court of Massachusetts he gives an extraordinary description. “One can see in these men exactly the national character of the natives of New England. Especially are they distinguished by the fashion of their clothing. They all present the appearance of respectable magistrates, with their very thick, round, yellowish wigs. Their clothes are of the very old English fashion, and they wear, winter and summer, a blue cloak with sleeves, which they fasten round their bodies with a leathern strap. You seldom see one without a whip. They are mostly thick-set