The official reports of Colonel Hatzfeld, in command of the detachment to which Seume belonged, and of Commissary Harnier, contain the real facts. The squadron consisted of six vessels for the Hessian recruits, two transports for freight, and eight more troop-ships, and two more with stores, and three frigates as convoy. The names of the ships and the directions as to the care and food of the men are all recorded. There were over one thousand men and a great number of women, wives of the soldiers with their children, all part of the Hessian force,--this was the ninth year of the war and the eighth and last detachment. Next in command to Colonel Hatzfeld was Major von Prueschenk; of captains, lieutenants, and ensigns there were ten,--among them two Muenchhausens. The younger one took a friendly interest in Corporal Seume at Halifax. The fleet left the Weser on June 9 and 10, 1782, and the landing at Halifax, in spite of storms and fog and French men-of-war, was made on August 13 without any noteworthy incident, according to the official reports. Seume, however, made the voyage last twenty-two weeks, when in fact that is thirteen weeks longer than it actually lasted, and he declares they never sighted land nor got fresh food, yet there was no unusual death-rate, although Steuernagel complains of the close quarters in the over-crowded ships. On August 19 Colonel Hatzfeld inspected the men with a view to distributing the recruits in the companies and regiments for which they were needed, and not a man was missing from the lists made out when the men embarked and when they disembarked. Just about as true is Seume's account of the return voyage, which took twenty-three days to England and forty to the German port of Cuxhaven. Seume had a very comfortable time in America, thanks to the help of Lieutenant von Muenchhausen. He might have become a Hessian officer, and yet he says it was difficult for any one not a nobleman to get a commission. A glance at the Hessian army list shows that this was not true, for a large proportion of the officers were plain citizens, not of noble families. At this very time Frederick of Prussia said publicly that plain citizens had not the proper feeling of honor necessary to make good officers. Seume's own colonel, Hatzfeld, and Huth, Rall, Kellermann, Ewald, all men of note and high command, were not nobles, but plain citizens. Seume's whole service as a Hessian soldier was only for two years. During this time he rose from the ranks to corporal, then to quarter-master, and finally to sergeant, and as he took his discharge in that grade, his complaints are much more discreditable than if he had remained in the ranks,--he perjured himself trebly by deserting. Why did he desert? When the returning troops landed at Bremerlehe they heard that the soldiers who were not natives of Hesse must either re-enlist or be discharged with half a month's pay. The Hessian soldiers, of course,