Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/33

 Rh did not return to Germany. Besides the contingents sent to America from Germany by agreement with the princes, a certain number of Germans served in the English regiments, some of which had recruiting stations on the Rhine.

It is difficult to say how the bargains between England and the German princes were regarded by public opinion in Germany at the time. Schlözer's Briefwechsel, the foremost German periodical of the period, was published at Göttingen, in the Hanoverian dominions of George III. It contains many articles on the American war, all written on the English side, with the single exception of a letter from Baron Steuben, who was fighting for the colonies. This letter is, moreover, annotated by the editor in a sense adverse to the Americans. This tone may perhaps have been forced upon Schlözer by circumstances, as the press in Germany was then tolerated rather than free. An interesting little book was published at Wolfenbüttel, near Brunswick, in 1778. It gives an account of America, its products, its geography, and its history, together with an excellent map. The author of the book is decidedly hostile to the colonists. The sending of more than seventeen thousand Germans to America is briefly, one might almost say incidentally, mentioned, though the earlier operations of the war and of these auxiliaries are described at some length. Yet the presence of so many Germans in the New World was undoubtedly the principal reason for the book's existence. It