Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/66

 54 more conciliatory towards England. The whole relation of the King of Prussia to our Revolutionary War is hardly worth the attention that has been bestowed on it. It would appear that Frederick, owing to his dislike for the British, and on grounds of general policy, gave orders to his ministers to treat the American agents, Arthur and William Lee, with politeness, though he was prevented by his political judgment from according them the smallest advantage. “I propose,” wrote he to his brother Henry, on June 17th, 1777, “to procrastinate in these negotiations, and to go over to the side on which fortune shall declare herself.” Seeing, however, in the autumn of 1777, a good opportunity to vent his spite against the English, to express his contempt for what he considered a disgraceful business, to diminish the drain of men from Germany, and, perhaps, to do a good turn to the Americans, with whom he sympathized as the enemies of his enemies, he adopted the measures above described. It is possible that Frederick was also influenced by a personal dislike for “Monsieur his Nephew,” who had long before embraced the Austrian side in German politics.

As for the importance to America of the hinderance thus thrown in the way of the mercenary princes, it seems to me that Kapp overrates it. It may possibly have been the want of the reinforcements thus delayed and the uncertainty of obtaining more men in the future that prevented Sir William Howe from destroying Washington's army at Valley Forge, and completely stamping out the rebellion. But such a