Chapter XI.
BARONESS RIEDESEL'S JOURNEY, 1776 AND 1777.
The Baroness Riedesel had started to join her
husband, bringing with her her three little daughters, of
whom the oldest was but four years and nine months
old, and the youngest an infant of ten weeks. The
journey from Germany to Canada in those days was
no light matter, nor was it free from imaginary as well
as actual perils. “Not only did people tell me of the
dangers of the sea,” writes Frau von Riedesel, “but
they also said that we must take care not to be eaten
by the savages, and that people in America lived on
horseflesh and cats. But all this frightened me less
than the thought of coming to a land where I did not
understand the language. However, I had made up
my mind to everything, and the idea of following my
husband and doing my duty held me up through the
whole course of my journey.”
The baroness left Wolfenbüttel, near Brunswick, on the 14th of May, 1776, and travelled by Calais to England. “At Maestricht I was warned to be on my guard, because the roads were very unsafe on account of highwaymen. A hundred and thirty of these had been hanged, or otherwise executed, in the course of the last fortnight, but there were more than four times as many still about. When taken they were immediately strung up without further ceremony on the roads
