then Colonel Baldwin, offering to take an order for any number that might be wanted.

In August he again writes a long reply to his father-in-law, in answer to letters urging him to express his sorrow that he had done wrong and to ask forgiveness of the people:

Woburn, August 14, 1775.

As to my being instrumental in the return of some Deserters, by procuring them a pardon, I freely acknowledge that I was. But you will give me leave to say that what I did was done from principles the most unexceptionable the most disinterested-a sincere desire to serve my King and Country, from motives of Pity to those unfortunate Wretches who had deserted the service to which they had voluntarily and so solemnly tyed themselves, and to which they were desirous of returning. If the designed ends were not answered by what I did, I am sincerely and heartily sorry. But if it is a Crime to act from principles like these, I glory in being a Criminal.

Many other crimes which you do not mention have been laid to my charge, for which I have had to answer both publicly and privately. My enemies are indefatigable in their endeavours to distress me, and I find to my sorrow that they are but too successful. I have been driven from the Camp by the clamours of the New Hampshire people, and am again threaten'd in this place. But I hope soon to be out of the reach of my Cruel Persecutors, for I am determined to seek for that Peace and Protection in foreign Lands and among strangers which is deny'd me in my native country. I cannot any longer bear the insults that are daily offered me. I cannot bear to be looked upon and treated as the Achan of Society. I have done nothing that can deserve this cruel usage. I have done nothing with any design to injure my countrymen, and cannot any longer bear to be treated in this barbarous manner by them.

And notwithstanding I have the tenderest regard for my Wife and family, and really believe I have an equal return of love and affection from them; though I feel the keenest distress at the thoughts of what Mrs. Thompson and my Parents and friends will suffer on my account, and though I foresee and realise the distress, poverty, and wretchedness that must unavoidably attend my Pilgrimage in unknown lands, destitute of fortune, friends, and acquaintance, yet all these Evils appear to me more tolerable than the treatment which I meet with from the hands of my ungrateful countrymen.'

I am too well acquainted with your Paternal affection for your Children to doubt of your kind care over them. But you will excuse me if I trouble you with my most earnest desires and entreaties for your peculiar care of my family, whose distressed circumstances call for every indulgence and alleviation you can afford them.

I must also beg a continuance of your Prayers for me, that my present afflictions may have a suitable impression on my mind, and that in due time I may be extricated out of all my troubles. That this may be the case, that the happy time may soon come when I may return to my family in peace and safety, and when every individual in America may sit down under his own vine, and under his own Fig-tree, and have none to make him afraid, is the constant and devout wish of

Your dutiful and affectionate son,

Rev. Tim. Walker.

BENJAMIN THOMPSON.

The following unpublished letter from General Howe to General Washington, written from Philadelphia in 1776, shows what the tyranny of the committees and people was:

You are not ignorant that numbers even of the most respectable gentlemen in America have been torn from their families, confined in gaols, and their property confiscated; that many of those in this city, whose religious tenets secured them from suspicion of entertaining designs of hostility, have been ignominiously imprisoned, and without

Dr. Ellis, in his admirable biography, says:

Major Thompson remained in and about Woburn two months after writing his last letter to Mr. Walker, in which he so deliberately avowed his intentions. He settled his affairs with his neighbours, collecting dues and paying debts, well assured that his wife and child would lack none of the means of a comfortable support. Having thus made all his preparations, he started from Woburn, October 13, 1775, in a country vehicle, accompanied by his stepbrother, Josiah Pierce, who drove him near to the bounds of the province, on the shore of Narragansett Bay, whence young Pierce returned. Thompson was taken on board theScarborough,' British frigate, to Newport and from thence to Boston.

In the Alienation Act of the Senate of New Hampshire in 1778 he was named among the proscribed; and in 1781, the confiscation papers of his property call him 'of Woburn, physician, now an absentee.'

Whilst Mr. Thompson was at Boston the American rebellion became a revolution. General Gage was succeeded by General Howe, and to him Lord Dartmouth

even the colour of a judicial proceeding, banished from their tenderest connections into the remotest part of another province. Nor can it be unknown to you that many have suffered death from tortures inflicted by the unrelenting populace under the eye of usurped yet passive authority; that some have been dragged to trial for their loyalty and, in cruel mockery of law, condemned and executed; that others are now perishing in loathsome dungeons, and that penal edicts are daily issuing against all who hesitate to disavow, by a solemn oath, the allegiance they owe and wish to pay to their sovereign.'

General Howe shows the exasperation of the Royalists also. He says: 'Members of committees, collectors of arbitrary fines, &c., oppressors of the peaceable inhabitants, have been seized by the exasperated inhabitants of different parts of the country and delivered into my hands.'

wrote in September 1775: No room was left for any other consideration but that of proceeding against the twelve associated Colonies in all respects with the utmost vigour as the open and avowed enemies of the State,' and he spoke of the great risk and little advantage that are to be expected from the continuance of the army at Boston during the winter, and on the advantages of recovering possession of New York. He tells the general that the Empress of Russia, in the fullness of her affection for the British nation, and of gratitude for the benefits she had received under her late difficulties, had made the most explicit declaration and given the most ample as urance of any number of infantry that might be wanted.' When, in consequence of this generous and magnanimous offer,' a requisition was made to her for 20,000 men for Canada, objections arose, and much embarrassment and disappointment were the only results.'

The Cape Fear expedition failed from ignorance of the depth of the river.

When Lord George Germain became one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, November 10, a commission was issued under the great seal for the restoration of public tranquillity among his Majesty's deluded subjects in the affected colonies.' A proclamation said: Apprised of the fatal consequence of the conduct they had adopted, and seeing the determined spirit of the nation to maintain its constitutional rights, they will avail themselves of the means which the justice. and benevolence of the supreme legislature have held out to them of being restored to the King's grace and

peace.' This failed utterly, from ignorance of the depth of opposition in the colonies. Boston was evacuated in March 1776, and Mr. Thompson was sent to England with the news. He was probably thought perfectly qualified to answer every question relative to his Majesty's service. Cuvier says, 'La bonne mine du jeune officier, la netteté et l'étendue des renseignements qu'il donna, prévinrent en sa faveur le secrétaire d'État au département de l'Amérique.' His news caused no great distress, and his information must have reassured the minister, for even in June Lord G. Germain and the Prime Minister wrote to General Howe on the good prospect of an end being put to the rebellion in one campaign. It was the good news from Canada that helped to deceive them.

Mr. Thompson was taken into Lord George Germain's office, and he was appointed Secretary of the Province of Georgia.

In the autumn of 1777 Thompson was at Bath for his health, drinking the waters. Whilst there he made some experiments on the cohesive strength of different substances. These led to no great results, but he communicated them to Sir Joseph Banks, the new President of the Royal Society.

Sir W. Howe was at this time asking for large reinforcements. He thus wrote to Lord G. Germain from Philadelphia:

'From the little attention, my Lord, given to my recommendations since the commencement of my command, I am led to hope that I may be relieved from this very painful service wherein I have not the