founded. He thought it, however, perfectly justifiable, and was willing to share in the consequences. Mr. Thurlow treated the motion as a mere party squib, denying that the preamble to an Irish law was binding on the Parliament of Great Britain; and Lord George Germaine, while he admitted that possibly the Lord Lieutenant might have misunderstood or exceeded his instructions, and that the bargain was not commendable on the ground of economy, contended that the first part of the message only proposed a matter to the consideration of the Irish Parliament, clearly and legally within the constitutional exercise of regal power. If the King had not promised to retain twelve thousand men within the kingdom, he might, by virtue of his prerogative, have ordered all the troops to any part of the British dominions, without application to Parliament. Both ministry and opposition testified, in ample and unequivocal terms, the general merits of Lord Harcourt's administration; and the motion for a committee was negatived, and all inquiry refused*. CHAP. XXVIII. 1776. treaties with Lord North submitted to the House copies of the On the treaties with the Duke of Brunswick, the Landgrave German of Hesse Cassel, the hereditary Prince of Hesse Cassel, princes. and subsequently one with the Prince of Waldeck†. These potentates stipulated to afford an aid of 17,742 men the terms were somewhat different, but all seemed extravagantly high. Levy money was to be paid at the rate of 71. 4s. 4d. each: all extraordinary losses in battle, siege, by contagious malady, or shipwreck, were to be compensated by the King, who was also to bear the expense of recruiting the corps. Three disabled men were estimated as one killed; the troops were to take oaths to the King of Great Britain, without prejudicing their allegiance to their own prince; to be employed on no extraordinary service, but to • 224 to 106. The dates of these treaties were 3rd and 15th January, and 5th of February, 1776. That with the Prince of Waldeck was subsequently presented to Parliament: it was made on the 20th of April, 1776. Parliamentary History, vol. xviii. pp. 1156, 1341. CHAP. XXVIII. 1776. 29th Feb. receive pay, forage, and provision, in common with English troops, and two months' pay in advance. Each of the princes received, beside these sums, a subsidy of disproportionate amount. To the Duke of Brunswick, who supplied four thousand and eightyfour, an annual stipend of 15,519l. was secured, so long as his troops received pay, and double that sum in the two years subsequent to their dismission. For twelve thousand men, the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel obtained 108,2811. per annum, and was to receive twelve months' notice of discontinuing the payment, after the forces were returned to his dominions. The Prince of Hesse, who contributed six hundred and eighty-eight men, was recompensed with an annual grant of 6,0177.; and for six hundred and seventy men, the Prince of Waldeck received the same sum. The dominions of the princes were also guaranteed against foreign attack. On moving to refer these compacts to the committee of supply, Lord North urged the necessity by which they were occasioned. Only three questions, he said, could arise: Whether the troops were wanted? Whether the terms were advantageous? and, Whether the force might be deemed adequate to the intended operations? The reduction of America to a constitutional state of obedience being the great object of Parliament, administration adopted the best and most speedy means of effecting it; men were thus obtained more easily, and much cheaper, than by the ordinary mode of recruiting; and the force thus acquired would, in all probability, compel submission, possibly without further effusion of blood. Lord John Cavendish reprobated the measure. Britain was disgraced in the eyes of all Europe; impoverished, and, what was if possible worse, reduced to apply to petty German states in the most mortifying and humiliating manner, and submit to indignities never before prescribed to the crown of a powerful and opulent kingdom. First, the troops were to enter into pay before they began their march; a thing unprecedented; secondly, levy money was to be allowed; thirdly, those petty princes were to be subsidised; fourthly, they modestly insisted on a double subsidy; fifthly, the subsidy was to be continued two years in one instance, and one year in the other, after the return of the troops to their respective countries; and lastly, a body of twelve thousand fereigners was, under the express words of the Hessian treaty, to be introduced into the dominions of the British crown, under no controul either of King or Parliament. Mr. Cornwall corroborated the minister's assertion, that the pecuniary terms of the treaties were advantageous, and lower than had ever before been obtained: this assertion was strenuously denied by opposition; and Mr. Grenville, Lord George Germaine, and Lord Barrington, in defending the measure, admitted that the terms were such as the princes had prescribed, and necessity compelled the ministry to accept. The general principle of letting out subjects to hire, to fight in the cause of foreigners, did not escape severe strictures*; and the expenses of the contest, of which these compacts were a specimen, were anticipated as enormous. 66 The conduct of administration, in thus engaging the assistance of foreigners, was contrasted with that of the Americans. "As a proof of their desire for peace, they tell you they have not called for aid on "the rivals of your grandeur: in reward of this for"bearance, their petition is rejected unheard; Parlia"ment is told, the King has with satisfaction received friendly offers of foreign assistance; and answer, "that they will cheerfully enable him to avail himself "of the offer. An American Congress holds in ab"horrence a measure which a British Parliament 66 CHAP. XXVIII. 1776. "I shall say little," Lord Irnham observed, "to the feelings of those princes "who can sell their subjects for such purposes. We have read of the humourist "Sancho's wish; that if he were a prince, all his subjects should be black-amoors, as he could, by the sale of them, easily turn them into ready money: "but that wish, however it may appear ridiculous and unbecoming a sovereign, is "much more innocent than a prince's availing himself of his vassals for the purpose of sacrificing them in such a destructive war,,where he has the additional "crime of making them destroy much better and nobler beings than themselves." 66 CHAP. XXVIII. 1776. 4th March. 66 adopts with cheerfulness. Perhaps the example of "this very act may render their adoption of the same "fatal measure unavoidable. A fatal measure; because, when foreign powers are once introduced into "this dispute, all possibility of reconciliation is pre"cluded." Germans were peculiarly improper: they would be employed in enslaving and irritating a hundred and fifty thousand of their own countrymen, many of whom fled from tyrants to seek the protection of Britain. Many German and Indian mercenaries would desert, accept of lands, and, although hired by us, league with the enemy. These objections were not answered in detail; but the necessity of the measure was repeatedly urged; the probability of abridging the duration of hostilities, by the employment of trained veterans instead of raw recruits, was represented as sufficient to counterbalance every disadvantage; and, as the expense was incurred for a limited period, the plan was really economical. In the debate on receiving the report of the committee, an address was voted to the King, on the motion of Colonel Barré, for cloathing the German troops in British pay with the manufactures of this country*. In the upper House, the Duke of Richmond moved In the House for an address to countermand the march of the foreign 5th March. of Lords. troops, and suspend hostilities. He entered into a history of the treaties concluded with Landgraves of Hesse, from 1732 to 1761, shewing that they had constantly advanced in their demands, never failing to establish former extortions as precedents for succeeding exactions. He then computed that, under different heads included in the treaty, and subsequent contingencies, the charge for 17,300 men would not be less than a million and a half; an expense unprecedented in history. Toward the close of the last war, an ingenious gentleman, Mr. Mauduit, calculated that The divisions were, on the question for referring the treaties to a committee, 242 to 88; for agreeing to the report, 120 to 48. every French scalp cost the nation ten thousand pounds. It would be right to consider the price of an American scalp, when the hire of seventeen thousand foreigners amounted to a million and a half. His Grace then stated the redundancy of officers in proportion to rank and file; the danger of keeping so many foreigners together under the command of their own generals; and depicted the exposed and perilous situation of England, should France or Spain, taking advantage of our weakness, attempt an invasion. 66 These observations were ably enforced by the other peers in opposition. The opinion of Sir Walter Raleigh, in his History of the World, was quoted against the employment of foreign mercenaries. "They are seditious, unfaithful, disobedient devourers and destroyers of all places and countries whither they are "drawn, as being held by no other bond than their own commodity. Yea, that which is most fearful among such hirelings is, that they have often, and "in time of greatest extremity, not only refused to fight in defence of those who have entertained them, " but revolted to the contrary part, to the utter ruin of "those princes and states who have trusted them." 66 66 66 Vehement censures were expressed against the power reserved to a foreign prince of administering justice within the dominions of Great Britain; and, the better to effect it, an executioner with servants formed part of the Hessian establishment*; nor was any limitation or exception to this illegal power provided, even should the civil government of America be restored. The stipulation to assist Hesse was equally reprobated: if the landgraviate was attacked in consequence of a decree of the imperial chamber, we must excuse our breach of the treaty by our minister's ignorance of the imperial constitutions, or enter into a war, like that in America, not to maintain, but to subvert the liberties of the Germanic body. In reply, the treaty was stated to be drawn up in the usual forms; the calculations did not prove the comparative dearness or cheapness of the terms: it * This was really the fact. See the treaty. CHAP. XXVIII. 1776. |