May 24.--Went early, in order to be at Mr. Benjamin Thompson’s in time, and being a little before, heard he was not returned from Lord George Germain’s, where he always breakfasts, dines, and sups, so great a favourite is he. To kill half an hour, I loitered to the park through the palace, and on second return found him at his lodgings. He received me in a friendly manner, taking me by the hand, talked with great freedom, and promised to remember and serve me in the way I proposed to him [probably the securing the continuance of his allowance unreduced]. Promises are easily made, and genteel delusive encouragement, the staple article of trade, belonging to the courtier’s profession, I put no hopes on the fair appearances of outward behaviour, though it is uncandid to suppose all mean to deceive. Some wish to do a service who have it not in their power; all wish to be thought of importance and significancy, and this often leads to deceit. This young man, when a shop-lad to my next neighbour, ever appeared active, good-natured, and sensible; by a strange concurrence of events, he is now Under-Secretary to the American Secretary of State, Lord George Germain, a secretary to Georgia, inspector of all the clothing sent to America, and Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant of Horse Dragoons at New York. His income arising from these sources is, I have been told, near seven thousand a year--a sum infinitely beyond his most sanguine expectations. He is, besides, a member of the Royal Society. It is said he is of an ingenious turn, an inventive imagination, and, by being on a cruise in Channel service with Sir Charles Hardy, has formed a more regular and better-digested system for signals than that heretofore used. He seems to be of a happy, even temper in general deportment, and reported of an excellent heart; peculiarly respectful to Americans that fall in his way. This statement of the income of Thompson was certainly enormously exaggerated. That about this time he was appointed to the King’s American Dragoons the following autograph letter, now in the library of the Royal Institution, shows: FROM LORD GEORGE GERMAIN TO SIR H. CLINTON. Stoneland Lodge, September 30, 1781.