Heroes of Science: Physicists

by William Garnett

[5] Father of the colonel.

The exact date of Thompson's marriage is not known. His daughter Sarah, afterwards Countess of Rumford, was born in the Rolfe mansion on October 18, 1774. It is needless to say that the engagement to Mrs. Rolfe terminated the teaching at the school.

Thompson now had a large estate and ample means to improve it. He gave much attention to gardening, and sent to England for garden seeds. In some way he attracted the attention of Governor Wentworth, the Governor of Portsmouth, who invited him to the Government House, and was so taken with the former apprentice, medical student, and schoolmaster, that he gave him at once a commission as major. This appointment was the cause of the misfortunes which almost immediately began to overtake him. He incurred the jealousy of his fellow-officers, over whom he had been appointed, and he failed to secure the confidence of the civilians of Concord.

Public feeling in New England was very much excited against the mother country. Representations were sent to the British Government, but appeared to be treated with contempt. Very many of these documents were found, after the war was over, unopened in drawers at the Colonial Office. British ministers appeared to know little about the needs of their American dependencies, and relations rapidly became more and more strained. The patriots appointed committees to watch over the patriotism of their fellow-townsmen, and thus the freedom of a free country was inaugurated by an institution bordering in character very closely upon the Inquisition; and the Committees of Correspondence and Safety accepted evidence from every spy or eavesdropper who came before them with reports of suspected persons. Thompson was accused of "Toryism;" the only definite charge against him being that he had secured remission of punishment for some deserters from Boston who had for some time worked upon his estate. He was summoned before the Committee of Safety, but refused to make any confession of acts injurious to his country, on the ground that he had nothing to confess. His whole after-life shows that his sympathies were very much on the side of monarchy and centralization, but at this time there appears to have been no evidence that could be brought against him. The populace, however, stormed his house, and he owed his safety to the fact that he had received notice of their intentions, and had made his escape a few hours before. This was in November, 1774. Thompson then took refuge at Woburn, with his mother, but the popular ill feeling troubled him here, so that his life was one of great anxiety.

While at Woburn, his wife and child joined him, and stayed there for some months. At length he was arrested and confined in the town upon suspicion of being inimical to the interests of his country. When he was brought before the Committee of Inquiry, there was no evidence brought against him. Major Thompson then petitioned to be heard before the Committee of the Provincial Congress at Washington. This petition he entrusted to his friend Colonel Baldwin to present. The petition was referred by the committee to Congress, by whom it was deferred for the sake of more pressing business. At length he secured a hearing in his native town, but the result was indecisive, and he did not obtain the public acquittal that he desired, though the Committee of Correspondence found that the "said Thompson" had not "in any one instance shown a disposition unfriendly to American liberty; but that his general behaviour has evinced the direct contrary; and as he has now given us the strongest assurances of his good intentions, we recommend him to the friendship, confidence, and protection of all good people in this and the neighbouring provinces." This decision, however, does not appear to have been made public; and Thompson, on his release, retired to Charlestown, near Boston. When the buildings of Harvard College were converted into barracks, Major Thompson assisted in the transfer of the books to Concord. It is said that, after the battle of Charlestown, Thompson was introduced to General Washington, and would probably have received a commission under him but for the opposition of some of the New Hampshire officers. He afterwards took refuge in Boston, and it does not appear that he ever again saw his wife or her father. His daughter he did not see again till 1796, when she was twenty-two years of age. On March 24, 1776, General Washington obliged the British troops to evacuate Boston; Thompson was the first official bearer of this intelligence to London. Of course, his property at Concord was confiscated to the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and he himself was proscribed in the Alienation Act of New Hampshire, in 1778.

When Thompson reached London with the intelligence of the evacuation of Boston, Lord George Germaine, the Secretary for War, saw that he could afford much information which would be of value to the Government. An appointment was soon found for him in the Colonial Office, and afterwards he was made Secretary of the Province of Georgia, in which latter capacity, however, he had no duties to fulfil. Throughout his career in the Colonial Office he remained on very intimate terms with Lord George Germaine, and generally breakfasted with him. In July, 1778, he was guest of Lord George at Stoneland Lodge, and here, in company with Mr. Ball, the Rector of Withyham, he undertook experiments "to determine the most advantageous situation for the vent in firearms, and to measure the velocities of bullets and the recoil under various circumstances."

The results of these investigations procured for him the friendship of Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, and Thompson was not the man to lose opportunities for want of making use of them. In 1779 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, "as a gentleman well versed in natural knowledge and many branches of polite learning." In the same year he went for a cruise in the Victory with Sir Charles Hardy, in order to pursue his experiments on gunpowder with heavy guns. Here he studied the principles of naval artillery, and devised a new code of marine signals. In 1780 he was made Under-Secretary of State for the Northern Department, and in that capacity had the oversight of the transport and commissariat arrangements for the British forces.

On the defeat of Cornwallis, Lord George Germaine and his department had to bear the brunt of Parliamentary dissatisfaction. Lord George resigned his position in the Government, and was created Viscount Sackville. He had, however, previously conferred on Thompson a commission as lieutenant-colonel in the British army, and Thompson, probably foreseeing the outcome of events and its effect on the Ministry, was already in America when Lord George resigned. He had intended landing at New York, but contrary winds drove him to Charlestown. It is needless to trace the sad events which preceded the end of the war. It was to be expected that many bitter statements would be made by his countrymen respecting Thompson's own actions as colonel commanding a British garrison, for at length he succeeded in reaching Long Island, and taking the command of the King's American Dragoons, who were there awaiting him. The spirit of war always acts injuriously on those exposed to its influence, and Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson in Long Island was doubtless a very different man from that which we find him to have been before and after; nor were the months so spent very fruitful in scientific work.

In 1783, before the final disbanding of the British forces, Thompson returned to England, and was promoted to the rank of colonel, with half-pay for the rest of his life. Still anxious for military service, he obtained permission to travel on the Continent, in hopes of serving in the Austrian army against the Turks. He took with him three English horses, which rendered themselves very objectionable to his fellow-travellers while crossing the Channel in a small boat. Thompson went to Strasbourg, where he attracted the attention of the Prince Maximilian, then Field-Marshal of France, but afterwards Elector of Bavaria. On leaving Strasbourg, the prince gave him an introduction to his uncle, the Elector of Bavaria. He stayed some days at Munich, but on reaching Vienna learned that the war against the Turks would not be carried on, so he returned to Munich, and thence to England.