King George was also the elector of Hanover! So why didn he just use his Hanoverian troops instead of hiring Hessians?
Because the estates of Hanover had made it law that the Elector could not use Hanoverian troops outside of Europe. George III did actually ‘loan’ himself six regiments from Hanover which were used to garrison Gibraltar in Spain. The fear in Hanover was that George would use the Hanoverian troops to fight the ‘dirty’ wars in the Indies (the Caribbean Islands), where troops would succumb to diseases and exposure long before they actually had a chance to see combat. In fact, when the Revolutionary War became a “world war” by the entry of the French and Spanish and Dutch into the conflict, the British did want to use Hessians in the Indies. However, Landgraf Friedrich forbade the use of his troops in such a way. Others were not so lucky. The Waldeck Regiment was sent to the Gulf coast of Florida in 1778, where it was captured at Pensacola in May of 1781. The English government did not even bother to tell the Prince of Waldeck that his regiment had been sent south, and when the Prince inqui
