| Description | Settlement examination of James Thompson of Warkworth in Northumberland. He was born at Simonburn in Northumberland, and is about 51 years old. He lived with his father Thomas Thompson as a labourer at Gowanburn in the parish of Simonburn until he was 20. He then went into the service of several masters for 15 or 16 years as a husbandry servant. Then he joined the army enlisting in the 10th Regiment of Foot, and served in that regiment for seven years and nine months. He was then discharged, but does not have his certificate with him. He came to Hull and served Sir H. Etherington and others weekly, but never by the year. He is unmarried and has never done anything to gain a settlement elsewhere, other than the settlement he gained from serving James Pentland esquire of Warkworth merchant, who hired him as an overlooker of his other servants at a wage of £15 for the year; but he cannot remember in which year that was
Deposition of Colonel Turner Straubenzee of Spennithorne. On 24 June 1791 he met James Thompson at one o'clock 'clock on the highway near Spennithorne, when Thompson accosted him in a supplicating manner. Thompson said that he had been in the battles of Bunkers Hill and Brandywine. Straubenzee said that if he was a good soldier, then the parish would take care of him, but warned him that he would apprehend him and take him before a Justice if he saw him begging again. Thompson appeared in Straubenzee's back yard and accosted him again, telling him the same story. Straubenzee asked Thompson who had been his captain in the 10th Regiment, and was told it was Captain O'Callaghan. Straubenzee believed that at the time of the battles, O'Callaghan was a lieutenant in the 63rd Regiment, and believed Thompson to be an imposter, and apprehended him, after a chase when Thompson fled towards the Middleham Ferry
With second affidavit of James Thompson, that he was never in America nor in any engagements |