Life of Count Rumford. 47 



guest at his table. For the good fortune, if such it 

 really were, which thus secured to him a questionable 

 honor, he was indebted, as we shall find that he also 

 was eleven years afterwards on the continent of Europe, 

 to his fine appearance as he rode on horseback, as a 

 spectator of a military review. Portsmouth was then 

 the centre of much wealth and refinement. It had a 

 mercantile class engaged in extensive business. Its 

 crown officers, with others in government employ, and 

 their associates in the administration of local affairs, 

 made an aristocracy of influence and fashion. It was 

 a time of growing alienations and fermenting discords, 

 and the more prominent or influential the position of 

 any individual, the more necessary was it for him to com- 

 mit himself to a side, and, having done so, to act and 

 speak as no longer neutral. Governor Wentworth rec- 

 ognized in young Thompson, not only the representa- 

 tive of a family already prominent in the public and 

 social life of his Province, but also a man of unmis- 

 takable promise, and of qualities that would be likely 

 to work vigorously for any interests which he should 

 espouse, especially if they were identified with his own. 

 He determined, therefore, to make him an object of 

 marked favoritism. A vacancy having occurred in a 

 majorship in the Second Provincial Regiment of New 

 Hampshire, Governor Wentworth at once commis- 

 sioned Thompson to fill it. It was only as a matter 

 of patronage from the royal Governor that the receipt 

 of such a commission might be supposed to cool the 

 spirit of patriotism in the young officer. It was not 

 the place, but the source and manner of his elevation 

 to it, that made it embarrassing to its possessor in his 

 subsequent course. His fellow-officers found no diffi- 



