Sir Thomas Pownall, British statesman and military figure, first came to North America as secretary to a royal governor of New York. In 1754, he met Franklin at the Albany Conference of union, and the two formed a friendship. Pownall became governor of Massachusetts in 1757, later nominally a governor of South Carolina. He opposed the restrictive measures of the British Lords of Trade toward to the colonies, returned to England, and spent the rest of his career in Germany and in Ireland. Source: Wikipedia entry drawn from the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.