144 Life of Count Rum ford. 



though the men wanted for this service are to engage as soon as 

 possible, yet they are not to quit the regiments to which they at 

 present belong till further orders. 



" OL. DELANCY, &c." 

 (Addressed to Captain Saunders.) 



Simcoe, in his chagrin at this transfer to Thompson 

 of a corps which his own self-esteem put at so conspicuous 

 an estimate for service, ascribes the outrage to the fact 

 that Sir Henry Clinton, the late Commander-in-Chief, 

 who well knew the merits of the Rangers, had recently 

 been recalled to England, and been succeeded by Sir 

 Guy Carlton, who had not learned to regard them so 

 highly. 



The "particular service" for which Thompson's 

 command was probably intended, I infer to have been 

 a projected enterprise for the defence of Jamaica, which, 

 it was understood, was about to be threatened by an 

 expedition under D'Estaing. The announcement of 

 the treaty of peace, which was soon made, rendered 

 the intended enterprise unnecessary, and, as we shall 

 see, put an end to Thompson's career here. But the 

 comment with which, as Simcoe says, the order of the 

 Adjutant-General was reported to him in England con- 

 veys a sting, the bitterness of which we can account for 

 only by inference. It was as follows : 



" 1 will only say that though as military men they could not 

 publicly reprobate and counteract this unjust, humiliating, and 

 disgraceful order, yet, conscious of their superiority both in rank 

 in life and in military service to the person whom it was 

 meant to aggrandize, they could not but sensibly feel it. I am 

 sorry to say that some of the Rangers, being made drunk, were 

 induced to volunteer it. The arrival of the last packet, as it 

 took away the pretence of their being for some particular ser' 

 vice,' has put a total stop to this business. The warrant, I am 



