Horatio Gates, also a regular soldier, had served under Braddock and was thus at that early period a comrade of Washington.

Intriguer he was, but not a traitor.

It was incompetence and perhaps cowardice which brought his final ruin.
Europe had thousands of unemployed officers some of whom had had experience in the Seven Years' War and many turned eagerly to America for employment.

There were some good soldiers among these fighting adventurers.

Kosciuszko, later famous as a Polish patriot, rose by his merits to the rank of brigadier general in the American army; De Kalb, son of a German peasant, though not a baron, as he called himself, proved worthy of the rank of a major general.