Fate urges me to inflict upon him
the punishment he has deserved by his misdeeds. Do not tell me the
Hessian people sympathize with the fate of the elector, and that they
are fondly attached to their legitimate sovereign. It is not true! The
people of Hesse are nursing the elector, and they are right in doing so.
He sold the blood of his subjects to England for many years, so that she
might wage war against us in both hemispheres. To this trade in human
beings he is indebted for the riches which he has amassed, and with
which he has now fled from his country. Can you deny this, gentlemen?
Can you deny, further, that the elector bitterly reproached one of his
generals, who commanded the troops sold to England in America, with
having held back his men, and with not having led them mercilessly
enough into the fire? Do not the Hessians know that the elector
upbraided him in this manner only because he received twenty-five ducats
for every soldier who was killed in battle? Well, why do you not speak?
Tell me that this is untrue--tell me that thousands of mothers are not
weeping for their sons who have fallen in America, and whose graves they
will never behold--that able-bodied men were not compelled by thousands
to leave their country as sold slaves, and that the imprecations of
those leaving did not unite with the curses of those remaining, in order
one day to become at the throne of God a terrible accusation against him
who ruined his states and his people, and enriched himself with the
blood and tears of his subjects.
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