Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/318

 In a letter written on the 8th of October, of the same year, he had gone still further, and said that mechanics and other prisoners who wished to remain should be obliged to return. On the 12th of March, 1778, he says that if prisoners have been enlisted by the Americans he has not known it. “We have always complained against General Howe, and still do,” writes he, “for obliging or permitting the prisoners in his hands to enlist, as an unwarrantable procedure, and wholly repugnant to the spirit at least of the cartel.” A few days later, however, he refers Pulaski to Congress. “I have informed him,” writes Washington, “that the enlisting of deserters and prisoners is prohibited by a late resolve of Congress. How far Congress might be inclined to make an exception, and license the engaging prisoners in a particular detached corps, in which such characters may be admitted with less danger than promiscuously in the line, I cannot undertake to pronounce.”

It is probable that Pulaski did, in fact, enlist deserters, and it is certain that the so-called Chevalier Armand (in fact Marquis de la Rouerie) did so. Wiederhold, when in captivity at Reading, early in 1780, saw two squadrons of Armand's corps pass through that town. He says that the corps had been four hundred strong and composed entirely of German deserters.

On the 22d of May, 1778, Congress passed a