IO2 Life of Count Rumford. 



in England, answer to a class of services rendered by 

 him of a nature not to be misconceived. 



Pictet, proceeding with his report of the confidential 

 disclosures of his friend from the point at which we 

 left them, wrote the following: 



" They had not in England at that time much exact informa- 

 tion about the state of the country, all whose ties to the mother 

 land had been ruptured for many years. Thompson thoroughly 

 understood the matter. He could give trustworthy intelligence 

 about the topography, and about the events of the war in which 

 he had played a part. He was not slow in winning the confi- 

 dence of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Some time after 

 his arrival in London he was appointed Secretary of the Prov- 

 ince of Georgia, an office, however, which he never filled. 

 He remained in London attached to the Colonial Office." 



When, soon after the peace, the members of the 

 successive administrations and parliaments of Great 

 Britain looked back over the long series of mortifying 

 blunders, mishaps, and discomfitures connected with the 

 management of the war, there was one conviction which, 

 as an explanation or a palliation, offered them chief 

 relief, though in itself hardly a consolation, namely, 

 that they had all along been working in the dark. They 

 were made aware of the entire ignorance, and of the 

 wholly misleading knowledge, so called, of this country, 

 its geography, its people, their feelings, purposes, and 

 resources, under which the war had been conducted. 

 This ignorance was felt in itself to have been culpable, 

 though the reason of it had been mainly indifference, 

 if not arrogant contempt. Means of information had 

 been within the reach of the government. Franklin 

 and other provincial agents had offered to enlighten the 

 ministry. Whole drawers of despatches and other 



