Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/209

 Rh and of medium height, so that it is difficult to tell one from another, when they are summoned by the consul of Boston as delegates of their townships, or have to appear on militia business. Not one in ten of them can read writing. Still less can they write. This art is only known to the knights of the pen and to the female sex. The latter are well brought up, and therefore succeed in obtaining mastery over the men more than in any nation in the world. The New-Englanders all want to be politicians, and, therefore, love the tavern and grog-bowl, over which they do their business, and drink from morning till night. They are all extremely curious, credulous, and madly in love with freedom, but at the same time so blind that they have not yet become at all aware of the heavy yoke of slavery laid on them by Congress, under which they are, in fact, already beginning to sink.” On the other hand, if we may believe the Brunswick officer above quoted, the Americans could not understand the social condition of their captives. “It was hard to make the inhabitants understand,” says he, “ that our officers had no professions. They had believed that it was from caprice that they would not work at their trades.”

The German “conventionists” were put into barracks on Winter Hill, near Cambridge, Massachusetts, while the English occupied the neighboring Prospect Hill. These barracks had been erected by the Americans for their own use during the siege of Boston, and were of the lightest description. The wind whistled through