The Hessians to whom Washington alludes were German mercenaries
hired by the King of England from two or three of the princelings of
Germany. These Hessians turned a dishonest penny by fighting in behalf
of a cause in which they took no immediate interest or even knew what
it was about. During the course of the Revolution there were thirty
thousand Hessians in the British armies in America, and, as their
owners, the German princelings, received £5 apiece for them it was a
profitable arrangement for those phlegmatic, corpulent, and braggart
personages. The Americans complained that the Hessians were brutal and
tricky fighters; but in reality they merely carried out the ideals of
their German Fatherland which remained behind the rest of Europe in
its ideals of what was fitting in war. Being uncivilized, they could
not be expected to follow the practice of civilized warfare.

When Washington returned to his headquarters in New York, he left the
Congress in Philadelphia simmering over the question of Independence.
Almost simultaneously with Washington's return came the British fleet
under Howe, which passed Sandy Hook and sailed up New York Harbor. He
brought an army of twenty-five thousand men. Washington's force was
nominally nineteen thousand men, but it was reduced to not more than
ten thousand by the detachment of several thousand to guard Boston
and of several thousand more to take part in the struggle in Canada,
besides thirty-six hundred sick. The Colonists clung as if by
obsession to their project of capturing Quebec. The death of
Montgomery and the discomfiture of Benedict Arnold, which really gave
a quietus to the success of the expedition, did not suffice to crush
it. Only too evident was it that Quebec could be taken. Canada would
fall permanently into American control, and cease to be a constant
menace and the recruiting ground for new expeditions against the