January 2, 1776
In 1776, as this extract of a letter in the Pennsylvania Evening Post highlighted, “great numbers” of German people lived in British North America, including in and around Philadelphia. The various German states in Europe would not unify for another century, but still, this writer claimed that “all Germany is fixed in admiration, wonder, and amazement, at the firm, determined, heroic spirit of the brave Americans.”
The letter reflected on whether Great Britain would hire foreign troops from the German states “in vain hope of subduing” the colonists. British North America had “an extensive country for Germans to cultivate,” and this writer suggested that “no people love profitable labour better, or are better adapted for the purpose.” They foresaw that German soldiers sent to fight on the British side might instead decide to stay and become farmers.
By the time this August 1775 letter was extracted and published in Philadelphia, King George III had decided to send German soldiers to fight alongside the British forces. These foreign mercenaries—remembered as “Hessians” because a large percentage came from the state of Hesse—became a featured complaint in American newspapers in the spring of 1776 and the subject of one of the grievances in the Declaration of Independence.
The Pennsylvania Evening Post
Printed by Benjamin Towne
Extract of a letter from Germany, dated August 10, 1775.
“All Germany is fixed in admiration, wonder, and amazement, at the firm, determined, heroic spirit of the brave Americans, and are exceedingly pleased with the undaunted opposition they make against the several attacks of the formidable arms of England employed to deprive them of their just rights to natural liberty, and the shackle them in chains of slavery and subjection ever after; and this will be the miserable consequence should they subdue you by their fleets and armies.
“Great numbers of our Germans live in America, and they highly experience, in that happy country, the sweets of freedom and liberty, and which they did not enjoy here under their petty arbitrary rulers; these men will exert every nerve in support of the righteous cause of freedom so sweet to them. Their numerous friends and relations here are constantly and most ardently supplicating the great Divine Ruler of all events to interpose and assist you with the almighty arm, and to set at naught all the wicked enslaving attempts of your enemies, but they hope you will not fold your arms, and depend altogether on the efficacy of your praying friends, but that you will make use of defensive means, and they hope and believe that providence will be propitious to your cause, which you have already had an earnest of, and that your oppressors may be discomfited. We wish that as England is going to hire foreign troops, in vain hope of subduing you (their own men becoming enervated and spiritless so soon as they tread the American soil) that they could obtain Germans to be sent on this errand; for in that case we foresee the event would turn in your favour, as you have an extensive country for Germans to cultivate, and no people love profitable labour better, or are better adapted for the purpose, which America has long experienced, and we know that they would soon drop their fire arms, and betake themselves to the cultivation of lands. We think highly of the wisdom of your American Congress, and of all their good regulations throughout that extensive continent, and we cannot enough admire the decent, loyal, yet manly and spirited language contained in all their petitions and supplications to the throne, and cannot enough detest the indecent treatment and scornful reception they have met with from those haughty men who guide all the movements of the nation.
“But we assure you that the unison chord has not been hit upon by your Congress, or all would long ere this have been well with America, and few would have known the true cause of the army and fleet returning to England. Two or three hundred thousand pounds, judiciously applied, would have wrought this miracle, and saved millions, which, for want of this knowledge, you are now expending in warlike preparations. France, Spain, Holland and Germany have long been acquainted with this prudent secret, and have frequently administered this specific with the wished for success. Money has removed mountains; it has turned the course of rapid rivers; it has built a barrier wall, to divide China from Tartary, of fifteen hundred miles in length, and surely it will influence the pliable yielding hearts of men. I hope this method will be adopted yet, it will never be unseasonable, for the English are as greedy and ravenous after money as a hungry wolf is after a fat sheep; their Kings are not proof against its fascinating charms, and we know they have been bribed to the prejudice of England. Touch but Bute’s palm, and all will be right; he is the arch fiend, and has all the imps at his command. We believe him to be a Jesuit, and we know he is a blood relation of the banished Stuart King, and we believe he has been long working schemes to bring in one of that family to be again King of England. May his schemes all sail, and may he be transformed, not into a pillar of salt, but into a man of stone, as a lasting infamous monument for posterity to gaze upon.”
