1O4 Life of Count Rumford. 



for service of that kind was in perfect consistency with 

 the mode in which affairs were then managed. No 

 doubt " topography " was the matter of his first con- 

 versation with Lord George and the youth had only 

 to fall back upon his school lessons. 



The head of the Department himself was wholly in- 

 competent for the place, and was but a blunderer. It 

 was in keeping with either the comic or the tragic ele- 

 ment in his management that he should have accepted 

 so young an adviser, and have extended to him so large 

 a confidence, so well rewarded. Lord George had 

 been received into office as a prominent and effective 

 agent in the subjugation of the American Colonies, 

 having been made Secretary on November 10, 1775. 

 He was desirous, by complete subserviency to the 

 schemes of the King and ministry, of retrieving his own 

 previously damaged reputation as a soldier. And we 

 may reasonably infer, that, as a condition of securing 

 his patronage and confidence, Thompson must have 

 shown that the information he could impart and the 

 counsels he should suggest would lie midway between 

 those given by such advisers as had previously been 

 listened to or set aside by the ministry. There were 

 honest, wise, and every way competent men, Americans 

 and Englishmen, within easy reach of the administra- 

 tion, and indeed proffering their counsels and warnings, 

 who knew much more, and saw far more keenly into 

 the horoscope of probable events, than did Thompson. 

 But their advice, so far as it involved forebodings, or 

 even deliberation and caution, was rejected by the 

 ministry as unwelcome, because given in the interest 

 of the rebellion. Others there were, like the refugee 

 officers of the crown and other loyalists, who had been 



