68 Life of Count Rumford. 



easiness, for which I am extremely sorry. Nothing short of the 

 most threatening danger could have induced me to leave my 

 friends and family; but when I learned from persons of un- 

 doubted veracity, and those whose friendship I could not sus- 

 pect, that my situation was reduced to this dreadful extremity, 

 I thought it absolutely necessary to abscond for a while, and 

 seek a friendly asylum in some distant part. 



" Fear of miscarriage prevents my giving a more particular 

 account of this affair ; but this you may rely and depend upon, 

 that I never did, nor (let my treatment be what it will) ever will 

 do, any action that may have the most distant tendency to injure 

 the true interest of this my native country. 



" I most humbly beg your kind care of my distressed family ; 

 and I hope you will take an opportunity to alleviate their trouble 

 by assuring them that I am in a place of safety, and hope 

 shortly to have the pleasure of seeing them. I also most hum- 

 bly beseech your prayers for me, that under all my difficulties 

 and troubles I may behave in such a manner as to approve 

 myself a true servant of God and a sincere friend of my 

 country. 



" To have tarried at Concord and have stood another trial at 

 the bar of the populace would doubtless have been attended with 

 unhappy consequences, as my innocence would have stood me 

 in no stead against the prejudices of an enraged, infatuated 

 multitude, and much less against the determined villany of 

 my inveterate enemies, who strive to raise their popularity on 

 the ruins of my character. My friends would have been deemed 

 unfriendly to the cause of Liberty, and my defence would have 

 been treated with contempt and disdain. It would have been 

 vain for me to have pretended to curb the fury or calm the 

 rage of this popular whirlwind ; but* I must have been cast, and 

 condemned to suffer punishments equal to the blackness of my 

 supposed transgressions. 



" The plan against me was deeply laid, and the people of 

 Concord were not the only ones that were engaged in it. But 

 others to the distance of twenty miles were extremely officious 

 on 'this occasion. My persecution was determined on, and 



