COUNT RUMFORD. 105 



shed at Concord (Emerson's Concord) and Lexington. 

 Thompson was at length arrested, and confined in Wo- 

 burn. A " Committee of Correspondence " was formed 

 to inquire into his conduct. They invited everyone who 

 could give evidence in the affair to appear at the meet- 

 ing-house on May 18. The committee met, but finding 

 nothing against the accused, they adjourned the meet- 

 ing. He then addressed a petition to the Committee of 

 Safety for the colony of Massachusetts Bay, in which 

 he begged for a full and searching trial, relying on 

 an acquittal commensurate with the thoroughness of 

 the examination. The petition was not attended to. 

 On May 29, 1775, he was examined at Woburn, where 

 he conducted his own defence. He was acquitted 

 by the committee who recommended him to the 

 "protection of all good people in this and the neigh- 

 bouring provinces." The committee, however, re- 

 fused to make this acquittal a public one, lest, it 

 was alleged, it should offend those who were opposed to 

 Thompson. 



Despair and disgust took possession of him more and 

 more. In a long letter addressed to his father-in-law 

 from Woburn, he defends his entire course of conduct. 

 His principal offence was probably negative; for silence 

 at the time was deemed tantamount to antagonism. 

 During his brief period of farming he had working for 

 him some deserters from the British army in Boston. 

 These he persuaded to go back, and this was urged as a 

 crime against him. He defended himself with spirit, 

 declaring after he had explained his motives that if his 

 action were a crime, he gloried in being a criminal. He 

 made up his mind to quit the country, expressing the 

 devout wish " that the happy time may soon come when 

 I may return to my family in peace and safety, and 

 when every individual in America may sit down under 



