1883.] on Count Bumford, Originator of the Boijal Institution. 415 



On the Englisli side tlie War of Independence was begun, continued, 

 and ended, in ignorance. Blunder followed blunder, and defeat followed 

 defeat, until the knowledge which ought to have been ready at the 

 outset came too late. Thompson for a time was the vehicle of such 

 belated knowledge. He was immediately attached to the Colonial 

 Office, then ruled over by Lord George Germain. Cuvier, in his 

 ' Eloge,' thus describes his first interview with that minister : " On 

 this occasion by the clearness of his details and the gracefulness of his 

 manners, he insinuated himself so far into the graces of Lord George 

 Germain that he took him into his employment." With Lord George 

 he frequently breakfasted, dined, and supped, and was occasionally 

 his guest in the country. But besides giving information useful to 

 his chiefs, he occupied himself with other matters. He was a born ex- 

 perimentalist, handy, ingenious, full of devices to meet practical needs. 

 He turned his attention to improvements in military matters ; " advised 

 and procured the adoption of bayonets for the fusees of the Horse 

 Guards, to be used in fighting on foot." He had previously been 

 engaged with experiments on gunpowder, which he now resumed. 

 The results of these exj)eriments he communicated to Sir Joseph 

 Banks, then President of the Eoyal Society, with whom he soon 

 became intimate. In 1779, he was elected Fellow of the Royal 

 Society. 



When the war had become hopeless, many of the exiles who had 

 been true to the Eoyalist cause came to England, where Thompson's 

 official position imposed on him the duty of assuaging their miseries 

 and adjusting their claims. In this connection, the testimony of Dr. 

 Ellis regarding him is that " so far as the relations between these 

 refugees and Mr. Thompson can be traced, I find no evidence that he 

 failed to do in any case what duty and friendliness required of him." 

 Still he did not entirely escape the censure of his outlawed fellow- 

 countrymen. One of them in particular had been a judge in Salem when 

 Thompson was a shop-boy in Appleton's store. Judge Curwen com- 

 plained of Thompson's fair appearance and uncandid behaviour. He 

 must have keenly felt the singular reversal in their relations. " This 

 young man," says the judge, " when a shop-lad to my next neighbour, 

 ever appeared active, good-natured, and sensible ; by a strange con- 

 currence of events, he is now Under-Secretary to the American 

 Secretary of State, Lord George Germain, a Secretary to Georgia, 

 Inspector of all the clothing sent to America, and Lieutenant-Colonel 

 Commandant of Horse Dragoons at New York ; his income from 

 these sources is, I have been told, near 7000Z. * a year — a sum 

 infinitely beyond his most sanguine expectations." 



As the prospects of the war darkened, Thompson's patron in 

 England became more and more the object of attack. The people 

 had been taxed in vain. England was entangled in Continental war, 

 and it became gradually recognised that the subjugation of the colony 



* This Dr. Ellis considers to be a delusion. 



