Linstead near Sittingbourne Fryday Oct. 24. 1783

Hon: d Sir Hopes and Fears have now given place to certainty; but whether you will think that a certain Lieutenant Colonelcy is equal to a possible Colonelcy, or a certain 1000 roubles to an expected nay promised 1200 or 1500 is more than I can venture to asure myself: one thing I can inform you from the best authority, that this 1000 roubles, shabby as it is, is more by 150 roubles than is given to the Chief Judge of the Principal Court of Justice in a Province of the first Magnitude and four times as much as is given to a Captain in a Regiment. This I speak from the Empress's Constitutional Code which is lying before me on the Table. The Rank, such as it is, will at any rate, I hope, answer his main purposes as he seems to think it will.