COUNT EUMFORD. 103 



tion of the mother country had spread throughout the 

 colony. Clubs and committees were formed which often 

 compelled men to take sides before the requisite data 

 for forming a clear judgment had been obtained. 

 ' Our candour,' says Dr. Ellis, ' must persuade us to 

 allow that there were reasons, or at least prejudices and 

 apprehensions, which might lead honest and right- 

 hearted men, lovers and friends of their birthland, to 

 oppose the rising spirit of independence, as inflamed by 

 demagogues, and as foreboding discomfiture and mis- 

 chief.' Thompson became < suspect,' though no record 

 of any unfriendly or unpatriotic act or speech on his 

 part is to be found. He was known to be on friendly 

 terms with Governor Wentworth; but the governor, 

 when he gave Thompson his commission, was highly 

 popular in the province. Prior to Wentworth's acces- 

 sion to office he * had strongly opposed every measure 

 of Great Britain which was regarded as encroaching 

 upon our liberties.' He thought himself, nevertheless, 

 in duty bound to stand by the royal authority when it 

 was openly defied. This rendered him obnoxious. 



Thompson was a man of refractory temper, and the 

 circumstances of the time were only too well calculated 

 to bring that temper out. * There was something,' 

 says Dr. Ellis, ' exceedingly humiliating and degrading 

 to a man of an independent and self-respecting spirit 

 in the conditions imposed at times by the " Sons of 

 Liberty," in the process of cleansing oneself from the 

 taint of Toryism. The Committees of Correspondence 

 and of Safety, whose services stand glorified to us 

 through their most efficient agency in a successful 

 struggle, delegated their authority to every witness or 

 agent who might be a self-constituted guardian of 

 patriotic interests, or a spy, or an eavesdropper, to 

 catch reports of suspected persons.' Human nature 



