Life of Count Rumford. 113 



under the constraints of ministerial reform and economy, 

 this sum had shrunk to 38,000, and many of the 

 exiles were compelled to face the alternative of returning 

 to America to meet the humor of their now independent 

 countrymen, or of remaining under humiliating circum- 

 stances amid equally unsympathizing people in Eng- 

 land. So far as the relations between these refugees 

 and Mr. Thompson can be traced, I find no evi- 

 dence that he failed to do, in any case, what duty and 

 friendliness required of him. If there was a seeming 

 exception to this in a case now to be mentioned, it is 

 very easy to relieve the imputation. 



One of the most forlorn and disconsolate of these 

 exiles was Samuel Curwen, of Salem, Massachusetts, 

 who had been a Deputy Judge of Admiralty and Pro- 

 vincial Impost Officer in the service of the crown, as 

 well as a county magistrate for thirty years. He had 

 abundant property, but, being obnoxious for lack of 

 spirit or confidence, on the breaking out of hostilities 

 he had fled to Philadelphia, and from thence had sailed 

 to England, remaining there through the war, but re- 

 turning here unmolested at its close. He was a refined 

 and sensitive man, desponding over his separation from 

 wife and home and his fear of want, as he had reached 

 the borders of old age. He received a gratuity of a 

 hundred pounds, and was put on the Treasury list for an 

 annual pension of the same amount. 



The following extracts from Judge Curwen's journal 

 have an interest in themselves in connection with Mr. 

 Thompson.* Having chosen his residence in London, 

 where he was intent to hear all the feverish rumors of 



* The Journal and Letters of Samuel Curwen, &c. By George Atkinson Ward. 

 4th edition. Boston, 1864. 



