About this time I met Sir John Macpherson, from Bengal, but now from Italy. He came by the Rhine; had a conversation with the King of Prussia on my ‘Travels,’ which his Majesty was reading, and commended greatly. He saw also the Marshal de Castries,[154] who was likewise reading them, and praised me in the highest terms. Sir John Macpherson told him that he had found my accounts of Lombardy so uncommonly just and accurate that he intended seeing the author as soon as he arrived in England. ‘Tell him, then,’ said the marshal, ‘that I did not know France till I read his admirable work, which astonishes me for its truth, and extent and justness of observation;’ and the next day he wrote to him pointing out an error of mine in the passage relating to his opening the French West Indies to foreign navigation. No man can speak in higher terms of a book than Sir John does of this. He says it is the best that ever was published. It is something whimsical that the ladies should tell me it is as entertaining as a romance, and that statesmen should praise it for its information. Faith! I had need be flattered to be kept in good humour—losing my time doing nothing in London in August. _September 9._—Dined at Pinherring’s, the American ambassador; he is a gentleman-like man; but for his company, though this was a great entertainment, there was such a motley group as would be difficult to find; they were so indelicate as to call for a war with England. I preserved the following among letters of this year:— _From the Countess of Bristol_ ‘January 4, 1793. ‘Dear Sir,—In spite of a bad cold, which makes me very heavy and ill qualified to write to _un homme d’esprit_, I must say a word or two in answer to your letter, and also assure you that the one you enclosed for Lord Bristol was forwarded by the same post to his agent in town. ‘Do I recollect reading your "Travels"? Yes, certainly, and the great pleasure and instruction I received from them; but the approbation, I assure you, came from a better quarter, or I should not have presumed on its being worth your acceptance. However that may be, I am much pleased with the effect, and fairly confess that I did wish to set your pen a-going, because you had _experience_ and _facts_ to write upon, and that I knew your warm colouring would suit the picture—in short, I saw you were a convert. I wished you to make others, and if I have been the least instrumental by awakening the spark in you, I shall feel that I am not wholly useless to the community where providence has placed me. I think everybody with talents is called upon, particularly at this time, to use them for the good of their once happy country, and I know of no one better qualified than yourself to employ your eloquence usefully.