But Washington’s genius and the license of the British soldiery had turned the tide at last, when it seemed upon the very point of becoming overwhelming. The occupation of the British, brief as it had been, had brought upon New York and the Jerseys experiences like those of a country overrun by a foreign soldiery permitted almost every license of conquest. When the ministers in England found themselves, in 1774, face to face with the revolt in the colonies, they could count but 17,547 men all told in the King’s forces; and when it came to sudden recruiting, they could obtain very few enlistments. They dared not risk conscription,—English opinion had never tolerated that, except to meet invasion. They sent to America, therefore, to reinforce General Howe, not only English soldiers as many as they could muster, but a great force of German troops as well, hired by the regiment, their trained officers included, from the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel and other German princes, neighbors to the German dominions of the House of Hannover. It was close upon a thousand of these “Hessians” (for the colonists knew them all by that single name) that Washington had taken at Trenton, but not until they and their comrades had had time to make every country-side from New York to the Delaware dread and hate them. The British commanders had suffered their men, whether English or foreign, to plunder houses, insult and outrage women, destroy fields of grain, and help themselves to what the towns contained almost as they pleased; and had hardened the faces of ten of the angry colonists against them for every one who made submission and sought to put himself on their side, accordingly. Their marauding parties made little distinction between friend and foe, so they but got what they wanted. Washington could thank them for doing more to check defections from the patriotic party than he could possibly do for himself by carrying out the orders of the Congress to disarm all loyalists and bring recusants to a sharp reckoning. [Illustration: RECRUITING POSTER _Editor’s Note._—The blurred inscription at the bottom of the poster reads as follows: That tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, and saturday, at Spotswood, in Middlesex county, attendance will be given by Lieutenant Reading, with his music and recruiting party of —— company in Major Shute’s Battalion of the 11th regiment of infantry, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Aaron Ogden, for the purpose of receiving the enrollment of such youth of spirit as may be willing to enter into this honourable service.