Life of Count Rumford. 81 



u This may certify that when Major Thompson was examined 

 before the Committee of Correspondence for the town of Wo- 

 burn, (being brought before them on suspicion of being inimical 

 to American liberties,) the affair of the return of four deserters 

 from Concord, in New Hampshire, to Boston, in which said 

 Thompson was supposed to be instrumental, and also his con- 

 duct relative to the Concord donation, sending a load of peas 

 to Boston, and an undue connection or correspondence with 

 Gov. Wentworth, were matters which were laid to his charge 

 against him, which were thoroughly examined into, and in every 

 particular the Committee received full satisfaction from said 

 Thompson." 



If this favorable but suppressed judgment on his 

 case was indeed only the unsuccessful verdict of a friend 

 present at the examination, we may well conclude that 

 that friend was Baldwin. Himself a man of thorough 



o 



sincerity and rectitude and a warm patriot, his cham- 

 pionship is Thompson's best vindication. 



The sense of a wrong which was becoming too aggra- 

 vating for longer patient endurance expresses itself in 

 this request of Thompson to his friend. 



"CAMBRIDGE, May 30, 1775. 



" SIR, I should take it as a great favour if you would apply 

 to the Honourable Provincial Congress, and withdraw a Petition 

 which I preferred to the Hon b ! e the Committee of Safety, on 

 the iQth of May inst., through your hands. 



BENJA THOMPSON. 

 " MAJOR LOAMMI BALDWIN." 



Major Thompson was after this released from con- 

 finement, and of course left free to go where he would, 

 at the risk, of meeting still uhappeased enemies, and 

 suffering such treatment as any combination of them 

 might visit upon him. That he did not return to 

 Concord, New Hampshire, and with such credentials 



