How much did King George III pay the Hessian soldiers?

Answer 1

King George III paid the Hessian soldiers nothing. Nobody paid them anything. George III rented them from their petty tyrant overlord, the Margrave of Hesse, at so much per head, with an indemnity clause in the agreement for any killed, again, payable to the overlord. The families of the slain got nothing. The British had first approached Catherine The Great of Russia about renting troops, but she decided against it. At that time Germany did not exist as a nation. Where Germany is on the map today were dozens of "Germanic States", including a few fairly sizable ones, but a great many which were little more than city-states. Each had its own little tin pot absolute monarch. The main business in several of these was the "soldaten handel" - the "soldier trade". Every male citizen on reaching the age of majority was subject to compulsory military service, which in the ancient tradition, was not a paid occupation. The idea of paying soldiers occurred to some nations in the 1600s, but these Germanic States were holding the line. Their overlord would then rent their services to any other monarch in need who had the coin to pay. Though these troops were usually called "Hessians" they were actually from about six of these little principalities: Hesse-Kassel, Hesse-Hanau, Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, Waldeck, Ansbach-Bayreuth, and Anhalt-Zerbst. In Europe they were expected to plunder where they went, if they wanted anything for themselves, and they enthusiastically applied themselves to this activity in America. Many had brought along their women, who were notorious as being even more greedy and rapacious than the men. When Washington attacked the Hessians at Trenton the day after Christmas in 1776, the first thing the Hessians did was to start their wagon train of plunder (stolen wagons pulled by stolen horses, loaded with every sort of stolen household item imaginable) out of town to the southeast, but, sadly for the Hessians, it fell into American hands anyway. About 30,000 Hessians were sent to America, and only about 17,000 went home. There were official inquiries in one or two of the little city-states as to why His Majesty's assets were so depleted. About 1,200 were killed in action, about 6, 300 died of illness or accidents, and about 5,000 took a look around and decided that staying in American where they could be free was a very good idea, and so deserted and remained here.