Life of Count Rumford. 149 



ican independence. I have allowed myself to use some 

 harsh and deprecatory terms concerning this period in 

 his career, and concerning the policy and measures of 

 the British government to which he seems so strenu- 

 ously to have committed himself. Personal and gen- 

 eral considerations have alike induced me to write as 

 I have done. It is to be remembered that Thompson, 

 up to the time when he finally left Woburn, had steadily 

 and positively affirmed his attachment to the cause in 

 whose behalf his friends, neighbors, and fellow-country- 

 men were putting themselves in armed opposition to 

 the British power. We have not only his disclaimer 

 of any act or word at variance with the popular en- 

 thusiasm, but his reiterated professions of full sym- 

 pathy with it. Add to this, also, the well-established 

 fact, that he had through his friend Baldwin, and by 

 his own direct appeals, sought a command in the Amer- 

 ican army while in camp in and around Cambridge. I 

 have not authenticated a traditional report that he 

 petitioned Washington himself to that effect. Nor 

 can I certify to though I think very probable the 

 statement made by the late Colonel Samuel Swett, in 

 his pamphlet on the Bunker Hill battle, to the effect 

 that Thompson was chagrined at his disappointment 

 in not obtaining the place given to Gridley in the 

 artillery service. It is enough for us to know, as we 

 do, that some of those, apparently well-informed per- 

 sons, who had heard Major Thompson on his trial and 

 on other public occasions, as well as in private, use the 

 strongest language in asserting his patriotism, very soon 

 after heard of him as on familiar and confidential terms 

 with the British officers in Boston, and as making him- 

 self of use to them. If, too, as there is reason to be- 



