XXVII. CHAP. distinctions. We should all, congress and army, be considered as one people, embarked in one cause, in one interest, acting on the same principle and to the same end." In framing an oath of fidelity for all civil and military officers, congress, much as it avoided the expression, made them swear that the "people of the United States" owed no allegiance to the king of Great Britain. The soldiers serving under one common flag, to establish one common independence, and, though in want of food, of shoes, of clothes, of straw for bedding, of regular pay, of pay in a currency of fixed value, never suffering their just discontent to get the better of their patriotism, still more clearly foreshadowed a great nationality. The unity of the country was formally proclaimed in its relations to the rest of the world. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE UNITED STATES AND GEORGE THE THIRD. 1777-1778. XXVIII. 1777. EXCEPT three fortified posts covering Newport, CHAP. New York with its environs, and Philadelphia, the United States were independent in fact, and no one port was blockaded. The court of Russia desired to shut their cruisers out of the Baltic, but confidentially assured the Bourbon family that it would not interfere, and would even be pleased to see them throw off the yoke of England. The great Frederic, while he closed his ports to their priva teers, avowed his belief that they would succeed, wished for their success, ridiculed the English war ministers and generals, and looked forward to a direct commerce between his kingdom and the new republic. Against the advice of Franklin and a seasonable hint from the Prussian minister Schulemburg that the visit would be premature, Arthur Lee went by way of Vienna to Berlin. At Vienna he was kept aloof by Kaunitz. In Berlin he, like XXVIII. CHAP every traveller, was assured of protection. Elliott, the British minister, at the cost of a thousand 1777. guineas, hired a burglar to steal his papers; but on his complaint to the police, Elliott sent them back, and spirited the thief out of the kingdom. Frederic, who refused to see Lee, of his own free will showed the agents of the United States friendly respect, resolved to acknowledge their independence as soon as it could be done without embroiling himself with England, and promised his influence to prevent new treaties by England for German troops. To this end he forbade for a time the transit through any part of his dominions to troops destined for America. The crazy prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, who ruled over but three hundred square miles with twenty thousand inhabitants, after unceasing importunities concluded a bargain for twelve hundred and twentyeight men, to be delivered at his own risk at the place of embarkation. Death was the penalty for the attempt to desert; yet as these regiments passed near the frontier of Prussia there was a loss of three hundred and thirty-three in ten days, and the number finally delivered was less than half of what was promised. When the men of Anhalt-Zerbst arrived at their destination in Quebec, the governor, having no orders to receive them, would not suffer them to disembark till a messenger could go to England and return. To make good the loss of Hessians, the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel impressed men wherever he could do so with impunity. The heartless meanness of the Brunswick princes would pass belief if it was not XXVIII. officially authenticated. These professed fathers of CHAP. their people begged that the wretched captives of Saratoga might not find their way back to Bruns- 1777. wick, where they would disgust everybody with the war, and spoil the traffic in soldiers by their complaints, but be sent to the deadly climate of the British West Indies, or anywhere rather than to their own homes. The princes who first got the trade in soldiers were jealous of competitors, and dropped hints that the states of Wirtemberg would never suffer a contract by their duke to be consummated; that Protestant England ought not to employ Catholic troops like those of the elector palatine; but it was the policy of Frederic which forced England to give over the hope of further subsidiary treaties with German powers. Under the German kinglings the sense of the nation could not express itself freely, but German political interest centred in America. The thought of emigrating thither had crossed the mind of Goethe. Translations of British pamphlets on the war, including "Price upon Liberty," were printed in Brunswick. Lessing saw with delight a new house of humanity rising beyond the ocean; Schiller, who had run the risk of being assistant-surgeon to a regiment of Wirtemberg mercenaries, a few years later brought the crime of the princes upon the stage; and Kant, who under the shelter of Frederic sought to solve by free analysis the unvarying laws of reason, judgment, and action, drew a condemnation of the traf fic in soldiers as it were from the depths of eter nity. Had officers or men sent over to America 1 Brunswick minister to British secretary of state, 23 December, 1777; and 23 February, 1778. XXVIII. CHAP. uttered complaints, they would have been shot for mutiny; but Mirabeau, then a fugitive in Holland, 1777 lifted up the voice of the civilization of his day against the trade, and spoke to the peoples of Germany and the soldiers themselves: "What new madness is this? Alas, miserable men, you burn down not the camp of an enemy, but your own hopes! Germans! what brand do you suffer to be put upon your forehead? You war against a people who have never wronged you, who fight for a righteous cause, and set you the noblest pattern. They break their chains. Imitate their example. Have you not the same claim to honor and right as your princes? Yes, without doubt. Men stand higher than princes. Of all rulers conscience is the highest. You, peoples that are cheated, humbled, and sold! fly to America, but there embrace your brothers. In the spacious places of refuge which they open to suffering humanity, learn the art to be free and happy, the art to apply social institutions to the advantage of every member of society." Against this tocsin of revolution the landgrave of Hesse defended himself on principles of feudal law and legitimacy; and Mirabeau rejoined: "When power breaks the compact which secured and limited its rights, then resistance becomes a duty. He that fights to recover freedom, exercises a lawful right. Insurrection becomes just. There is no crime like the crime against the freedom of the peoples." When on the twentieth of November the king of England opened the session of parliament, there were only three systems between which the choice |