106 COUNT RUMFORD. 



those troubled times that had occasion to charge upon 

 those espousing the championship of public liberty a 

 tyrannical treatment of individuals who did not accord 

 with their schemes or views. Probably in our late war 

 of rebellion his case was paralleled by those of hundreds 

 in both sections of our country, who, with halting and 

 divided minds or unsatisfied judgments, were arrested 

 in the process of decision by treatment from others 

 which put them under the lead of passion. The choice 

 of a great many Eoyalists in our revolution would have 

 been wiser and more satisfactory to themselves, had 

 they been allowed to make it deliberately.' On October 

 13, 1775, Thompson quitted Woburn, reached the shore 

 of Narraganset Bay, and went on board a British frigate. 

 In this vessel he was conveyed to Boston, where he re- 

 mained until the town was evacuated by the British 

 troops. The news of this catastrophe he carried to England. 

 Henceforward, till the close of the war, he was on the 

 English side. As a matter of course, he was proscribed 

 by his countrymen, and his property confiscated. 



Thompson was not only a man of great capacity, 

 but, in early days, of a social pliancy and teachableness 

 which enabled him with extreme rapidity to learn the 

 manners and fall into the ways of great people. On 

 the English side the War of Independence was begun, 

 continued, and ended, in ignorance. Even now we can 

 hardly read the pages of ' The Virginians ' which refer 

 to these times without exasperation. 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 be- 

 lated knowledge. He was immediately attached to the 

 Colonial Office, then ruled over by Lord^ George Grer- 

 main. Cuvier, in his s Eloge,' thus describes his first 

 interview with that Minister : ' On this occasion, by the 



