Forcible recruiting was forbidden; but this rule was probably intended to apply only to natives. It certainly does not seem to have diminished the activity of the recruiting officers, and probably no such rule existed in the smaller states. In Anspach no subject could leave the country, or marry, without permission ("Geschichte von Anspach," Fischer, 1786.) It is to be noted that in this case the country did not mean Germany, but the territories of the Margrave, and that the foreigners whom the Landgrave of Hesse wished to see recruited were the subjects of the neighboring German princelings. Recruiting officers were active all over Germany. Spendthrifts, loose livers, drunkards, arguers, restless people, and such as made political trouble, if not more than sixty years old and of fair health and stature, were forced into the ranks. The present of a tall, strapping fellow was at that time an acceptable compliment from one prince to another, and in every regiment were many deserters from the service of neighboring states. Together with this mixed rabble served the honest peasant lads of Germany, forced from their ploughs. It may be noted, as a general rule, that the regiments sent to America in 1776 were made up of better material than were the bodies of recruits subsequently furnished (In the autumn Of 1777 Knyphausen complains to the Landgrave that since the new recruits have joined the army, pilfering within the regiments and plundering outside of them can hardly be restrained.)