Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/322

 292 for the benefit of his people, and that these approved of the transaction. Into the first contention I do not propose to enter further than is necessary to point out its irrelevance. Had the Landgrave gone into the Revolutionary War on its merits, an argument drawn from the depravity of the rebels and the wickedness of rebellion would have been pertinent. It has no force when applied to a prince who, in accordance with a policy that was hereditary in his dynasty, let out his troops to the highest bidder. As to the second argument, it is true that public morality in the matter of the employment of mercenaries was and is deplorably loose. A nation engaged in a great struggle can hardly be expected not to take help where it can find it. The individual soldier of fortune has long been looked on with too much indulgence. But to be a soldier of fortune by proxy, to coin money out of other people's blood, and by perils which he who profits by them does not share, has never been considered a manly occupation; and those who say that the Hessian people approved of Landgrave Frederick's bargains condemn his subjects without excusing himself. A better argument was found by his minister, Schlieffen, in the close connection between the English court and the courts of Hesse and Brunswick. The American provinces might conceivably be inherited by a Hessian prince. Did we, therefore, see Hessian soldiers serving in English pay against American rebels without pecuniary compensation to the Landgrave, we might believe that they were sent for political reasons. This argument loses its force in the face of the subsidies. The Landgrave entered into a sordid bargain, and it is in the light of this bargain that he must be judged.