Burgoyne's Foreign Troops - "With Regularity and Bravery"
On October 22, 1777, Brigadier-General John Glover alerted the Massachusetts Council that the Convention Army was on its way to Boston, including 2,198 "foreign troops". By foreign troops Glover meant Germans, almost half of the total force surrendered at Saratoga. Labeling them as such, Glover avoided designations often used such as "Hessian" or "mercenary", but reaction in Massachusetts was predictable. Massachusetts residents had a dim view of the German troops fighting with the British to start with. Their reaction was hardly new or unique to New England. Indeed, among the grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 was that King George III was "... transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous of ages..." In addition to British troops and Canadian, Provincial and N...