Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/45

 Rh together under the command of one of their own generals, on the possibility of such a general arriving at the supreme command, and on the confusion which might be created by a difference on this head between the foreign general and the commander-in-chief.

The Earl of Suffolk answered in behalf of the administration. “The tenor of the treaties themselves,” he said, “is no other than has been usual on former occasions. The present, it is true, is filled with pompous, high-sounding phrases of alliance, but I will be so ingenuous as to confess to the noble duke that I consider them merely in that light; and if he will, I allow that the true object of those treaties is not so much to create an alliance as to hire a body of troops, which the present rebellion in America has rendered necessary.” Having thus made light of the terms of a treaty for which he was personally responsible. Lord Suffolk proceeded to point out that the conditions of that treaty were advantageous if the employment of the troops should only last one year, but that in any case, if they wanted the soldiers, they were obliged to acquiesce in the terms demanded. He expressed his belief that the commander-in-chief superseded all other generals, and on being pressed he asserted positively that such was the case.

The Earl of Carlisle was persuaded that the number of hands required to carry on manufactures, the little use of new levies, at least for the first campaign, and the desire that every friend of his country ought to have for putting a speedy termination to the unhappy troubles, united, created an evident necessity for the