Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/244

 222 yet seen. For the houses are not only all built in English fashion, regular and handsome, and most of them like palaces, but are also all papered and very expensively furnished. It is, therefore, a pity that this country, which is also very fruitful, is inhabited by such wretches, who in their luxury and wantonness have not known what to do with themselves, and who have only their pride to thank for their fall. Every one at home who takes their side, and thinks they had a reasonable ground for rebellion, should, for a punishment, live awhile among them, and so understand the condition of things here (for the worst man here, if he will only do something, can live like the richest at home). Whoever would do this would soon change his tone, and understand that not poverty, but crime and luxury, are the cause of the whole rebellion. For although most of them are descended from runaway vagabonds who were driven out from other places, yet they are so arrogant, and live in such state in all parts of the country, and especially in New York, as I hardly believe to be practised anywhere else in the world. For instance, the women, who are almost all handsome, be they the wives of shoemakers, tailors, or day-laborers (which last, however, are but few, for almost every soul here has a few black slaves to wait on him), go daily in mantles of silk or muslin. This luxury increases daily, for they receive much money from the troops, and do not have to give so much as a grain of salt for nothing. Nothing is, indeed, more annoying than that people who after all are no more than rebels, must, by express order of the king, be treated by the soldiers with the greatest politeness; and, as I said