62 Life of Count Rumford. 



inflamed by demagogues, and as foreboding discomfiture 

 and mischief. They feared that we should suffer the 

 worst of the strife, and that the sort of government we 

 should be likely to have as the alternative of a mon- 

 archy would probably make us largely the losers. Yet 

 the utterance of such views, if only as misgivings, might 

 in many places be equally impolitic and dangerous. 



As has been already said, there is no record, or even 

 tradition, of unwise or unfriendly expressions dropped 

 by Mr. Thompson which could be used against him 

 even when he challenged proof of his alleged disaffec- 

 tion to the cause of his country. However, he was 

 young, and he had an independent spirit. His military 

 promotion by pure favoritism, and, what he insisted was 

 simply an act of humanity, his seeking immunity for 

 two returning deserters, were enough in themselves to 

 assure him jealous enemies. But silence and neutrality 

 were then as hazardous as speech or opposition di- 

 rected against the popular enthusiasm. He therefore 

 became a suspected person in Concord, where there 

 were watching enemies and tale-bearers, as well as jeal- 

 ous Committees, who soon brought their functions to 

 bear in a most searching and offensive way against all 

 who did not attend the popular assemblies. It was as 

 well known as it was observable that Thompson took 

 no part in these. What more he did or said, or failed 

 of doing or saying, must be left, as before remarked, to 

 conjecture. Yet it must have been something which 

 irritated or displeased, something which could be turned 

 into the material for exciting a mob, with the risk of 

 rude, if not violent, treatment, exhibited at the time in 

 the favorite process of tarring and feathering a politi- 

 cally obnoxious person. Thompson's family connec- 



