Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/48

dependence. The employment of foreign mercenaries by the British government was largely instrumental in persuading the Americans to throw off their allegiance to the English crown, and to seek the alliance of their former enemies. The danger pointed out in the protest of the lords became a reality, and men of English blood held that France had as good a right as Hesse to interfere in their domestic quarrels.^[1]

1. See Leckey's “History of England in the Eighteenth Century,” vol. iii. pp. 453 et seq. See also a clause in the Declaration of Independence (given in Appendix C).