66 Life of Count Rumford. 



discharged. This discharge, however, though nominally 

 an acquittal, was not effective in relieving him from 

 popular distrust and in assuring for him confidence. 

 Probably his own backwardness to avow sympathy and 

 make professions in accordance with the wishes of his 

 enemies left him still under a cloud. A measure less 

 formal and more threatening than the examination be- 

 fore a self-constituted tribunal was, as a matter of 

 course, secretly planned by the excited people. This 

 was a visit to his comfortable home, the most con- 

 spicuous residence in the village. It was carried into 

 effect in November, 1774. A mob gathered, at the 

 time agreed on, around this dwelling, and after a sere- 

 nade of hisses, hootings, and groans, demanded that 

 Major Thompson should come out before them. The 

 feeling must have been intense, and was of a nature to 

 feed its own flame. Had Thompson been within, he 

 would inevitably have met with foul handling. The 

 suspicion that he was hiding there would have led to 

 the sacking of his dwelling and the destruction of his 

 goods, though the daughter of their venerated minister 

 was its mistress, and she was the mother, not only of 

 Thompson's infant, but of the only child of their 

 former most distinguished townsman, Colonel Benjamin 

 Rolfe. Mrs. Thompson and her brother, Colonel 

 Walker, came forth, and with their assurance that her 

 husband was not in the town, the mob quietly dispersed. 

 Having received a friendly warning that this assault 

 was to be made upon him in the shape of an inquisi- 

 torial visit at his house, and taking the advice to which 

 reference has been made, Mr. Thompson had secretly 

 left Concord just before. He thought it was to be only 

 a temporary separation from the place, from all his 



