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forces. To crown the infamy and inflame the bloodthirstiness of the Indians a prize of $8. was offered for every American scalp, be it of man, woman or child. Nothing further was needed to stimulate the savages to the wildest blood-orgies. In small troops and large bands they roamed all over the border territories, attacked every settlement and committed the most atrocious massacres. To accomplish this work of destruction the British secured the assistance of the powerful chief of the Iroquois: Thayendanegea or Joseph Brandt, who devastated with his warriors mainly the western parts of New York and Pennsylvania. Burned houses, barns and stables, ruined fields, the corpses of scalped men, ravished women and murdered children marked the track of the redskins. And in the commission of these crimes, British officers and soldiers as well as loyal Tories from these localities lent helping hands.
As is well known England used for the war against the Americans also soldiers which they had hired at great expense in Germany, the Hessians. This proceeding found even in England severe critics. Chatham declared in Parliament: "Were I as good an American as I am an Englishman and had to behold how a foreign army appeared in my own country I would never lie down my arms—never!" These words express precisely the deep revolt of all Americans, upon hearing that for their suppression England had enlisted foreign hirelings. But the Americans soon had occasion to get enraged over still other British treacheries.
When Congress attempted to meet the prevailing lack of currency by the issue of paper money the perfidious Britishers used this circumstance to increase the terrible difficulties of the Americans. They turned counterfeiters, imitated the notes issued by Congress and brought enormous numbers of those falsifications in circulation. This brought the paper money in such discredit that everybody shied from accepting it. The depreciation in the value of the paper money increased to such a degree that forty paper dollars were necessary to buy one silver dollar. A pair of boots cost 400—600 paper dollars, and the monthly wages of a soldier was just sufficient to buy one dinner. That, in spite of all these dreadful obstacles, the Independence of the Colonies was established, is the merit of the heroism of the colonists, the admirable devotion of George Washington and of the patriots who surrounded him. And last not least, the co-operation of such true champions of liberty as Steuben, Kalb, Herchheimer, Mühlenberg, Lafayette and many others. And hereby was fulfilled a prediction made by Napoleon when in 1803 circumstances compelled him to
