LVII.

CHAP. by Brunswick was equal to one twenty-seventh part of its collective population; by the landgrave of Hesse, to one out of every twenty of his subjects, or one in four of the able-bodied men; a proportionate conscription in 1776 would have shipped to America from England and Wales alone an army of more than four hundred thousand. Soldiers were impressed from the plough, the workshop, the highway; no man was safe from the inferior agents of the princes, who kidnapped without scruple. Almost every family in Hesse mourned for one of its members; light-hearted joyousness was not to be found among its peasantry; most of the farm work was thrown upon women, whose large hands and feet, lustreless eye, and imbrowned and yellowing skin showed that the beauty of the race suffered for a generation from the avarice of their prince.

In a letter to Voltaire, the landgrave, announcing his contribution of troops, expressed his zeal to learn "the difficult principles of the art of governing men, and of making them perceive that all which their ruler does is for their special good." He wrote also a catechism for princes, in which Voltaire professed to find traces of a pupil of the king of Prussia. "Do not attribute his education to me," answered the great Frederic; "were he a graduate of my school, he would never have turned Catholic, and would never have sold his subjects to the English as they drive cattle to the shambles. He a preceptor of sovereigns! The sordid passion for gain is the only motive of his vile procedure."

From avarice he sold the flesh of his own people while they were yet alive, depriving many of exist

ence and himself of honor.

LVII.

In an empire which CHAP. spoke the language of Luther, where Kant by pro-~~~ found analysis was compelling skepticism itself to bear witness to the eternal law of duty, where Lessing inculcated faith in an ever improving education of the race, the land of free cities and free thought, where the heart of the best palpitated with hope for the American cause, the landgrave forced the energies of his state to act against that liberty which was the child of the German forests, and the moral life of the Germanic nation. And did judgment slumber? Were the eyes of the Most High turned elsewhere? Or, in the abyss of the divine counsels, was some great benefit in preparation for lands all so full of tyrants, though beyond the discernment of the sordid princes, whose crimes were to promote the brotherhood of nations?

CHAPTER LVIII.

BRITAIN BEATS UP FOR RECRUITS IN AMERICA.

CHAP.

Jan.

JANUARY, FEBRUARY, 1776.

THE disbanded Highlanders, who had settled in the valley of the Mohawk, were reported as disposed 1776. to rally once more under the king's standard; to prevent their rising, Schuyler, at Albany, in January, 1776, following the orders of the general congress, called out seven hundred of the New York militia, and sending an envoy in advance to quiet the Mohawks of the Lower Castle, marched upon Johnstown, in what was then Tryon county. He was joined on the way by Herkimer and the militia of that district, till his force numbered more than two thousand, and easily overpowered Sir John Johnson and his party. The Indians, as mediators, entreated the personal liberty of Johnson, and Schuyler, whose ingenuous mind would not harbor the thought, that a man of rank could break his word of honor, was contented with exacting his parole to preserve neutrality, and confine himself within carefully prescribed bounds.

LVIII.

Jan.

The quantity of military stores that he delivered up CHAP. was inconsiderable; on the twentieth, at noon, between two and three hundred Highlanders marched 1776. to the front of the invading force, and grounded their arms. In the two following days, Herkimer completed the disarmament of the disaffected, and secured six Highlanders as hostages for the peaceable conduct of the rest. Schuyler and his party were rewarded by the approbation of congress.

After the death of Montgomery, the active command in Canada was reserved for Schuyler, to whom it properly belonged. His want of vigorous health, and the irksomeness of controlling the men of Connecticut, had inclined him to leave the army; the reverses suffered within his own district, now placed him in a painful dilemma: he must either risk the reproach of resigning at the news of disasters, or retain his commission, and in the division of his department leave to another the post of difficulty and danger. Unwilling at such a moment to retire, yet too "weak and indisposed" to undertake the campaign in Canada, he continued as before to render auxiliary services. The general congress acquiesced in his decision, and invited Washington to propose in his stead an officer to conduct the perilous warfare on the St. Lawrence.

The position of New York gave great advantage to the friends of the royal government; for the British men-of-war were masters of the bay, the harbor, the East River, and Hudson River below the Highlands; neither Staten Island nor Long Island could prevent the landing of British troops; the possession of Long Island would give the command of Manhattan Island, which had not as yet accumulated ma

CHAP. terials for defence. In Queen's county, where a large LVIII. part of the population was of Dutch descent, and 1776. among the English there were churchmen and very many Quakers, the inhabitants, by a vote of more than three to one, refused to send delegates to the provincial congress; and it was only after long delays that the inhabitants of Richmond county made their election. In West Chester, Morris of Morrisania and Van Cortlandt were unwavering in their patriotism; but the Delanceys and Philipse, who owned vast tracts of land in the county, bent their influence over their tenants in favor of the king with so much effect, that the inhabitants were nearly equally divided. In the city the popular movement was irresistible; but a large part of the wealthy merchants were opposed in any event to a separation from Britain. The colony of New York, guided in its policy by men of high ability, courage, and purity, had pursued with unvarying consistency a system of moderation, at first from a sincere desire to avoid a revolution, if it could be done without a surrender of American rights; and when that hope failed, with the purpose of making it manifest to all, that the plan of independence was adopted from necessity. In this manner only could they stand acquitted of the guilt of needlessly provoking war, and unite in the impending struggle the large majority of the people. It was also obviously wise to delay the outbreak of actual hostilities till warlike stores could be imported, and the women and children of a rich and populous city be removed from danger. This system was maintained alike by the prudent and the bold; by Livingston and Jay, by John Morin Scott and Macdougall.