74 Life of Count Rumford. 



April 17, 1775, a body of fifty "minute-men" had 

 been provided for. Thus watchful was the oversight 

 of suspected persons and the cause of Liberty. 



It seemed as if the worried man were now in a fair 

 way to obtain a hearing. 



In Colonel Baldwin's Diary, under date of May 18, 

 1775, is the following entry : 



" Thursday in afternoon went to Woburn to sit as one of a 

 Committee of Correspondence upon Major Thompson, who 

 was taken up as a Tory, but, finding nothing against him, ad- 

 journed till next Monday." 



And the following occurs in another place, which seems 

 to refer to the same occasion as it is of the same date : 



" At a Court of Inquiry into the conduct of Major Thomp- 

 son of Concord, New Hampshire, convened at the Meeting- 

 House of the First Parish in Woburn, on Thursday, the i8th 

 of May, 1775, at 2 o'clock, by the Committee of Correspond- 

 ence of said Town." 



Until after the affair at Concord and Lexington, 

 while it was evident that matters were coming to a 

 crisis, intercourse between Boston and the adjoining 

 country was substantially open, though the capital was 

 under military rule, and the yeomen of the neighboring 

 towns, organized as minute-men, were on the watch 

 night and day for alarms. But after the British troops 

 had returned from their inroad, entrance to Boston or 

 exit from it was attended with difficulty. General Gage, 

 who had himself married an American lady, and was the 

 owner of land here, appears to have thought, till he was 

 recalled to England, that the quarrel between the colo- 

 nies and the mother country might yet be adjusted; 

 and it seems plain that Major Thompson, on his visits 

 to Boston, felt the influence of the General upon him- 



