Life of Count Rumford. 129 



* 



dragoons at the head of which he intended to place him- 

 self, or rather that remnant of the corps which escaped 

 coming under the full terms of the capitulation at York- 

 town, were on Long Island, New York, awaiting his 

 coming. As to the pathetic scenes which. Thompson 

 was called to witness, and at the narration of which, in 

 the Frenchman's rehearsal, he wept, he might have 

 seen similar ones at the beginning of the war, before he 

 left his native country. No doubt there were enough 

 of them, and they were harrowing enough to distress 

 one of a philanthropic heart. But without meaning to 

 intimate that there was any exaggeration in the reference 

 to so many peculiarly distressing incidents, I feel re- 

 lieved in avowing that in faithfully searching after the 

 real occurrences which they imply I have been unsuc- 

 cessful in finding them. 



Charleston was evacuated December 14, 1782, but 

 before that event had taken place, and in the middle of 

 the spring of that year, Thompson had sailed for New 

 York. What Pictet received from his own lips is to be 

 inferred from the following report of it : * 



" Honored with the esteem of the army, and with the most 

 flattering recommendations from General Leslie for the Com- 

 mander-in-Chief, Thompson started in the spring of 1782 for 

 New York, where he took the command of his regiment. Prince 

 William Henry, Duke of Clarence, third son of the King, who 

 reviewed his corps, committed the colors to him with his own 

 hand. General Clinton was succeeded towards autumn by 

 Carlton, who also extended to Thompson his friendship and 

 confidence. He gathered into his corps the feeble remains of 

 two regiments which had been engaged through the war, and 

 was sent to Huntington, an advanced post of the army on Long 

 Island, where he passed the winter." 



* Bibliothcque Britannique. Vol. XX. 



9 



