52
RICE UNIVERSITY STUDIES
Near the conclusion of his Spaziergang Seume mentions that on
his way home from France in 1802 he again passed through the
territory of Hesse-Cassel. He writes: “In Vach [Vacha] the handy-
men of the old landgrave14 had seized me and delivered me to
Ziegenhain and Cassel and from there to America. Now one hears
that such arbitrary acts have been stopped” (W, III, 199). And
he goes on describing the conditions at the court of Hesse-Cassel,
and how the dependence of all subjects on the will of this one
ruler had led to the sale of Hessian troops to the English. The
manner in which Seume had been inducted into the army is not
clear. It is highly probable that he was simply arrested at the inn
where he had found lodging for the night, for he was on Hessian
soil (W, I, 59). His academic identity card was torn up, he became
a stateless individual, and he was made over into a Hessian soldier.
In Mein Sommer he remarks that while walking from St. Peters-
burg to Vyborg, perspiration “poured down from me more than at
the time, when I stood at attention with my battalion for several
hours and labored with hand and foot to the sound of the drum”
(W, III, 115). One can imagine how brutally the conscripted troops
were drilled. Seume never ceases to refer to the military problem
in the state, and on the basis of his own experience requires that
there be just cause for war (W, IV, 178) ; this is particularly
true, if it is a war for one’s country (W, III, 205). He thus through
his experiences with the Hessians introduces the concept of a na-
tional war (before J. G. Fichte) of either liberation or of defense,
the former becoming a fact after his death.
Now comes his first meeting with an Englishman. In Seume’s
autobiography, in the passages dealing with his training at Ziegen-
hain, he mentions that the conscripts were supposed to be shipped
to America in the spring of 1782 after “Fawcet’s inspection” (W,
I, 59). And later, on the way to Bremen and the British transports,
he writes that they were inspected by the “Faultfinder [Makler ]
Fawcet” (W, I, 66). It should rather read “Makler Fawcet,” Fawcet
the Broker. Colonel William Faucit or Fawcett (1728-1804), of the
Guards, came to Germany towards the end of 1775 as the emissary
of Henry, 12th Earl of Suffolk (1739-1779), the Lord Privy Seal
and Secretary of State, to make the treaties for the allied forces
of Britain.15 Faucit spent all these years in Germany inspecting
the troops of the eight states with whom treaties had been signed
and insuring their readiness for battle. When he inspected Seume’s
contingent, they all had to shout with the kind help of the butt-end
of rifles, “Long live the King” in German (W, I, 66). It is to be