DEAR SIR,--Last Friday I had the honour to wait upon his Excellency, Governour Wentworth, at Portsmouth, where I was very politely and agreeably entertained for the space of an hour and a half. I had not been in his company long before I proceeded upon business, viz. to ask his Excellency whether ever the White Mountains had been surveyed. He answering me in the negative, I proceeded to acquaint him that there was a number of persons who had thought of making an expedition that way next summer, and asked him whether it would be agreeable to his Excellency. He said it would be extremely agreeable, seemed excessively pleased with the plan, promised to do all that lay in his power to forward it,--said that he had a number of Mathematical instruments (such as two or three telescopes, Barometer, Thermometer, Compass, &c.) at Wentworth House, (at Wolfeborough, only about thirty miles from the mountains), all which, together with his library, should be at our service. That he should be extremely glad to wait on us, and to _crown all_ he promised, if there were no public business which rendered his presence at Portsmouth _absolutely necessary_, that he would take his tent equipage and go with us to the mountain and tarry with us, and assist us till our survey, which he said he supposed would take about twelve or fourteen days!!!--!!--!!!!! During 1773 he was chiefly farming. Whilst on a visit with his wife to Boston he was introduced to Governor Gage and to several of the British officers. Among those who worked for him on his farm were four deserters from the grenadiers at Boston. He persuaded them to return to their regiment. He wrote to General Gage to beg pardon for them. He asked that his petition might be kept secret. He wished not to excite more enmity among his neighbours. But the use of his influence with the Governor got known. The bitterest feeling was working in the country. Civil war was about to begin. Major Thompson was suspected by the people because he was in favour with the royal Governors. The committees of correspondence and of safety listened to the reports of any of the ‘sons of liberty.’ Major Thompson was called before a committee of the people in Concord for being ‘unfriendly to the cause of liberty.’ He denied the charge, and was acquitted. About this time (August 1774) he asks his friend, Mr. Loammi Baldwin, merchant in Woburn, ‘to favour him with an easy question, arithmetical or algebraical, and he will give as good an account of it as possible.’ In October his only child, Sarah, was born. In November the mob gathered round his house, but by friendly warning he was able to escape to his mother’s at Woburn, fifty miles away. Here he sought to busy himself by reading, and he made some experiments on gunpowder; but ill-will soon followed him, and he was driven for shelter to a friend at Charleston.