CHAPTER 'III. 



Major Thompson s Mission to Lord G. Germaine. His Ser- 

 vices to the Ministry. Made Secretary of Georgia. 

 Explores London. Objects of his Interest. Experi- 

 ments. Visit to Bath. Guest of Lord Germaine. 

 Fire- Arms and Gunpowder. Sir Joseph Banks. Na- 

 val Service, and Experiments. Made Under-Secretary 

 of State. Loyalists in England. Judge Curwen. 

 Dr. Gardiner. President Laurens. Disastrous In- 

 telligence. Thompson commissioned as Lieutenant-Colo- 

 nel for Service in America. Arrival in Charles- 

 ton, S. C. In Action there. Arrival in New York. 

 His Command. Recruiting. Presentation of Col- 

 ors. Severe Charges against Thompson. Colonel Sim- 

 coes Reflections. Returns to England. Promotion. 

 On Half-Pay for Life. Agency for Loyalists. 



IN one of his letters to his father-in-law, on a pre- 

 vious page, Benjamin Thompson had written, " I 

 never did, nor (let my treatment be what it will) ever 

 will do, any action that may have the most distant 

 tendency to injure the true interests of this my native 

 country." Any one who should assume as I do 

 not to maintain the consistency between this solemn 

 pledge and the agency to which Major Thompson 

 immediately and zealously committed himself on his 

 arrival in England would have to fashion for him an 

 argument which, however plausible, would be subtle 



