THE ROYAL INSTITUTION.

LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET

THE
ROYAL INSTITUTION:

ITS FOUNDER
and
ITS FIRST PROFESSORS.

BY
DR. BENCE JONES,
HONORARY SECRETARY.

LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1871.

[PREFACE.]

I begin the history of the Royal Institution, and its professors to the time of Faraday, with the life of its founder, Count Rumford, because his career and character determined its original form. I have written short accounts of the earliest professors because the spirit that has shown itself in them has up to this time been the life of the Institution. Dr. Garnett and Dr. Thomas Young had comparatively little influence there, because the founder took the most active part in the establishment of his Institution; but when Count Rumford and Sir Joseph Banks had left and Mr. Bernard and Sir John Hippesley were the leading managers, Professor Davy gradually became the main supporter of the place, and to him chiefly it owes the form which it now retains.

During the last half-century the name of Faraday has been so blended with that of the Royal Institution that few people know what Davy made it; and fewer still have heard what Rumford at first intended it to be.

The following account will show that the Institution owes its origin entirely to Rumford, and would certainly have failed but for Davy. Moreover, it will be seen that before Faraday came there, it had been the home of Dr. Garnett and of Dr. Thomas Young; Dr. Dalton had lodged and lectured for weeks there; Sydney Smith, Coleridge, Sir James Smith, Dibden, Dr. Crotch, Campbell, Landseer, Opie, and Flaxman had also lectured there; Sir Joseph Banks and Mr. Cavendish had been managers, and Dr. Wollaston and Dr. Jenner had been members.

I have searched everywhere to find new or forgotten facts about the Institution.

For the sketch of the founder I owe much to the Rev. Dr. G. E. Ellis, of Boston, who has lately written the Life of Rumford for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. I have found many despatches and letters relating to Rumford in the manuscripts of the American War now in the library of the Royal Institution, and in the unpublished correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, in the archives of the Foreign Office, and in the State Paper Office.

Not the least strange fact in the history of this original man is that during his life he received no thanks for all that he did for the Royal Institution. Moreover at the present time he is scarcely known as the finder of Davy and the founder of that place where very many of the greatest scientific discoveries of this century have been made.

For the account of the origin and progress of the Institution I have searched the minutes of the meetings of the managers, the proprietors, and the members. I am much indebted to Earl Spencer, who has lent me from the Althorp library a printed copy of the first prospectus of the Royal Institution. This was written by Count Rumford. I have found many forgotten things in the manuscript letters to and from Sir Joseph Banks, to which I have had access by permission of the Knatchbull family; also in a manuscript life of Mr. Webster, the architect of the Royal Institution theatre; and in some letters which belonged to Mr. Savage, the clerk and first printer at the Institution, and for which I am indebted to his daughters.

For the sketch of the lives of Dr. Garnett and of Dr. Young I have been able to find very little original matter.

For the life of Sir Humphry Davy I have met with some new facts in his laboratory note-books. These books give most of his daily work at the time when he was making his great discoveries regarding chemical electricity, the alkalies, and chlorine. I have also had the use of the notes by Faraday of four of the last lectures given by Davy at the Institution. This is the manuscript volume sent to Davy by Faraday when he asked to be employed at the Institution. It consists of 386 small quarto pages. Davy at this time was thirty-three, and Faraday was twenty-one. The one was full of energy to profit by the excellence he could follow, or to shun the evil he could foresee; the other had long reached the climax of his success by his youthful popularity as a lecturer and his early renown as a discoverer; and was about to make a rich and an unsuitable marriage; and before long was to suffer from the restlessness of the failing health that ended in fatal disease.

Whenever a true comparison between these two nobles of the Institution can be made, it will probably be seen that the genius of Davy has been hid by the perfection of Faraday.

Incomparably superior as Faraday was in unselfishness, exactness, and perseverance, and in many other respects also, yet certainly in originality and in eloquence he was inferior to Davy, and in love of research he was by no means his superior.

Davy, from his earliest energy to his latest feebleness, loved research; and, notwithstanding his marriage, his temper, and his early death, he first gained for the Royal Institution that great reputation for original discovery which has been and is the foundation of its success.

H. B. J.

Royal Institution, Albemarle Street,
October 27, 1871.

[CONTENTS.]

[THE ROYAL INSTITUTION.]

[CHAPTER I.]
LIFE OF RUMFORD BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE INSTITUTION.
1753 to 1799.

At Charlestown, Massachusetts, in the year 1630, James Thompson was among Winthrop’s company. He settled about ten miles inland, and the place was called Woburn. In 1752 Benjamin Thompson was there with his father, Captain Ebenezer Thompson, and he married Ruth Simonds, of that place. Their child, the future Count Rumford, was born in his grandfathers farmhouse, on March 26, 1753. The house is still to be seen near the meeting-house in North Woburn. When the child was a year old his father died, and when he was three years old his mother married again. ‘To the close of her life Rumford wrote to her full of affection, and by the munificent provision which he made for her he showed his tender, grateful regard for her.’

A small inheritance from his grandfather helped to support and to educate the boy. By the law of Massachusetts everyone had a good grammar-school education, and the village school teacher at Woburn was then a graduate of Harvard College and taught a little Latin. From his earliest years the boy was fickle and careless. He neglected regular work, but liked arithmetic. He was full of energy and quick to make what he wanted. When eleven he went to a better school in the neighbouring town of Medford. When thirteen Benjamin Thompson appeared unlikely to make a farmer. He was therefore apprenticed to an importer of British goods and a dealer in everything, at Salem, on October 14, 1766. ‘Instead of watching for customers over the counter, he busied himself with tools and instruments under it.’ When he could he played his fiddle, and played it well. When only fourteen his master allowed him to make small ventures in shipping goods that were paid for by a relative. He was clever at drawing and cutting names, and he thought he had ‘invented a machine for making motion perpetual.’ When the repeal of the Stamp Act occurred, he blew himself up with fireworks, and was in great danger of death. His master signed the non-importation agreement. Thus his apprentice became useless. When sixteen he returned to his mother. To an elder school-fellow, L. Baldwin, at this time he wrote questions on light, heat, and the wind.

In 1769, when seventeen, he was apprentice and clerk to a drygoods dealer at Boston. There he went to an evening-school to learn French, paying only for the hours he attended.

A note-book made by him about this time still exists. It abounds in caricatures. Has receipts for different fireworks. One of these ends with, ‘Love is a noble passion of the mind.’ Contains the sum he paid for learning French and for pew-rent, and the sums gained by cutting and carting firewood for relatives. Instructions for the back sword exercise, with a sketch of two combatants; and later there is an account of ‘what expense I have been at towards getting an electrical machine,’ and ‘an account of what work I have done towards getting an electrical machine.’

In the winter of 1770 he was ill for five weeks with fever. Then for eighteen months off and on he boarded with Dr. John Hay, of Woburn, and whilst with him he learned something of anatomy, chemistry, materia medica, surgery, and physic. During the summer, 1771, he went to Cambridge, to attend Mr. Winthrop’s lectures on Experimental Philosophy. In the winter of 1771-2 for some weeks he was teaching in a school at Wilmington, and in the spring he taught at Bradford. In the summer he left Dr. Hay for good, because he was asked by Colonel Walker to become the fixed master of a school at Concord, New Hampshire. This place had been called Rumford when it belonged to Essex County, Massachusetts. The name was changed when the disputes as to the county to which it belonged were ended.

The Rev. T. Walker was the first minister of Concord. He was a native of Woburn and connected with the Thompson family. He was the chief man in Concord. His son was a colonel and a lawyer, and his daughter, when about thirty, was married to Colonel Rolfe, who was sixty. She was left a rich widow in two years, and in the middle of the following year Thompson came as schoolmaster to Concord. He was not yet quite twenty. His friend Baldwin describes him ‘as of fine, manly make and figure, nearly six feet high, with handsome features, bright blue eyes and dark auburn hair. His manners were polished and his ways fascinating, and he could make himself agreeable. He had well used his opportunities of culture, so that his knowledge was beyond that of most of those around him, and he was able to give satisfaction as a teacher.’

In the country parsonage and at Colonel Walker’s house he frequently met Mrs. Rolfe, and he told his friend Professor Pictet that she married him rather than he her. This was about the end of 1772, when he was nearly twenty. He had to teach no more in school. His marriage made him one of the chief men in Concord.

After his marriage he went with his wife to Portsmouth, where she knew Governor Wentworth. ‘He saw in young Thompson not only the representative of a family already known in the public and social life of his province, but also a man of much promise, one likely to work vigorously in whatever he took up.’ The Governor soon gave Thompson a commission as major in the second provincial regiment of New Hampshire. The young officer at once became an object of jealousy and ill-will to all the lieutenants and captains of his regiment. The favour of the Governor made all his brother officers his enemies.

The following letter to the Rev. Mr. Williams, at Bradford, afterwards Professor at the college there, shows the influence of Thompson with the Governor, and also some of his scientific thoughts and aims:

Concord, Monday, January 17, 1773.

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. Thence he wrote to his father-in-law at Concord:

December 24, 1774.

Reverend Sir,—The time and circumstances of my leaving the town of Concord have, no doubt, given you great uneasiness, for which I am extremely sorry. Nothing short of the most threatening danger could have induced me to leave my friends and family; but when I learned from persons of undoubted veracity, and those whose friendship I could not suspect, that my situation was reduced to this dreadful extremity, I thought it absolutely necessary to abscond for a while, and seek a friendly asylum in some distant part.

Fear of miscarriage prevents my giving a more particular account of this affair; but this you may rely and depend upon, that 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 interest of this my native country.

I most humbly beg your kind care of my distressed family; and I hope you will take an opportunity to alleviate their trouble by assuring them that I am in a place of safety, and hope shortly to have the pleasure of seeing them. I also most humbly beseech your prayers for me, that under all my difficulties and troubles I may behave in such a manner as to approve myself a true servant of God and a sincere friend of my country.

To have tarried at Concord and have stood another trial at the bar of the populace would doubtless have been attended with unhappy consequences, as my innocence would have stood me in no stead against the prejudices of an enraged, infatuated multitude,—and much less against the determined villany of my inveterate enemies, who strive to raise their popularity on the ruins of my character. My friends would have been deemed unfriendly to the cause of Liberty, and my defence would have been treated with contempt and disdain. It would have been vain for me to have pretended to curb the fury or calm the rage of this popular whirlwind; but I must have been cast, and condemned to suffer punishments equal to the blackness of my supposed transgressions.

The plan against me was deeply laid, and the people of Concord were not the only ones that were engaged in it. But others to the distance of twenty miles were extremely officious on this occasion. My persecution was determined on, and my flight unavoidable. And had I not taken the opportunity to leave the town the moment I did, another morning had effectually cut off my retreat.

In May his wife and her infant joined him at his mother’s home at Woburn. When there, skirmishes took place between the people and troops at Concord, Massachusetts, and Lexington, and in this last fight Major Thompson is said to have taken part with the people; but he was soon the object of ill-feeling, and, although he was saved from immediate arrest by his friend Major Baldwin, a short time afterwards he was arrested, and then he appealed from the Committee of Correspondence of Woburn to the Committee of Safety of the Provincial Congress. When he was acquitted at Woburn and set free, he withdrew his petition from the Committee of Safety. Soon after he was with Major Baldwin at Charlestown, and probably he took part in the battle of Bunker’s Hill. He certainly helped to pack up the library at Cambridge, and was only prevented by the officers of the New Hampshire Militia from obtaining a commission from General Washington. When epaulets were ordered for the non-commissioned officers, he had samples made and sent them with the price to his friend, then Colonel Baldwin, offering to take an order for any number that might be wanted.

In August he again writes a long reply to his father-in-law, in answer to letters urging him to express his sorrow that he had done wrong and to ask forgiveness of the people:

Woburn, August 14, 1775.

As to my being instrumental in the return of some Deserters, by procuring them a pardon, I freely acknowledge that I was. But you will give me leave to say that what I did was done from principles the most unexceptionable—the most disinterested—a sincere desire to serve my King and Country, from motives of Pity to those unfortunate Wretches who had deserted the service to which they had voluntarily and so solemnly tyed themselves, and to which they were desirous of returning. If the designed ends were not answered by what I did, I am sincerely and heartily sorry. But if it is a Crime to act from principles like these, I glory in being a Criminal.

Many other crimes which you do not mention have been laid to my charge, for which I have had to answer both publicly and privately. My enemies are indefatigable in their endeavours to distress me, and I find to my sorrow that they are but too successful. I have been driven from the Camp by the clamours of the New Hampshire people, and am again threaten’d in this place. But I hope soon to be out of the reach of my Cruel Persecutors, for I am determined to seek for that Peace and Protection in foreign Lands and among strangers which is deny’d me in my native country. I cannot any longer bear the insults that are daily offered me. I cannot bear to be looked upon and treated as the Achan of Society. I have done nothing that can deserve this cruel usage. I have done nothing with any design to injure my countrymen, and cannot any longer bear to be treated in this barbarous manner by them.

And notwithstanding I have the tenderest regard for my Wife and family, and really believe I have an equal return of love and affection from them; though I feel the keenest distress at the thoughts of what Mrs. Thompson and my Parents and friends will suffer on my account, and though I foresee and realise the distress, poverty, and wretchedness that must unavoidably attend my Pilgrimage in unknown lands, destitute of fortune, friends, and acquaintance, yet all these Evils appear to me more tolerable than the treatment which I meet with from the hands of my ungrateful countrymen.[1]

I am too well acquainted with your Paternal affection for your Children to doubt of your kind care over them. But you will excuse me if I trouble you with my most earnest desires and entreaties for your peculiar care of my family, whose distressed circumstances call for every indulgence and alleviation you can afford them.

I must also beg a continuance of your Prayers for me, that my present afflictions may have a suitable impression on my mind, and that in due time I may be extricated out of all my troubles. That this may be the case, that the happy time may soon come when I may return to my family in peace and safety, and when every individual in America may sit down under his own vine, and under his own Fig-tree, and have none to make him afraid, is the constant and devout wish of

Your dutiful and affectionate son,
Benjamin Thompson.

Rev. Tim. Walker.

Dr. Ellis, in his admirable biography, says:

Major Thompson remained in and about Woburn two months after writing his last letter to Mr. Walker, in which he so deliberately avowed his intentions. He settled his affairs with his neighbours, collecting dues and paying debts, well assured that his wife and child would lack none of the means of a comfortable support. Having thus made all his preparations, he started from Woburn, October 13, 1775, in a country vehicle, accompanied by his stepbrother, Josiah Pierce, who drove him near to the bounds of the province, on the shore of Narragansett Bay, whence young Pierce returned. Thompson was taken on board the ‘Scarborough,’ British frigate, to Newport and from thence to Boston.

In the Alienation Act of the Senate of New Hampshire in 1778 he was named among the proscribed; and in 1781, the confiscation papers of his property call him ‘of Woburn, physician, now an absentee.’

Whilst Mr. Thompson was at Boston the American rebellion became a revolution. General Gage was succeeded by General Howe, and to him Lord Dartmouth wrote in September 1775: ‘No room was left for any other consideration but that of proceeding against the twelve associated Colonies in all respects with the utmost vigour as the open and avowed enemies of the State,’ and he spoke of the great risk and little advantage that are to be expected from the continuance of the army at Boston during the winter, and on the advantages of recovering possession of New York. He tells the general that ‘the Empress of Russia, in the fullness of her affection for the British nation, and of gratitude for the benefits she had received under her late difficulties, had made the most explicit declaration and given the most ample assurance of any number of infantry that might be wanted.’ When, ‘in consequence of this generous and magnanimous offer,’ a requisition was made to her for 20,000 men for Canada, objections arose, and ‘much embarrassment and disappointment were the only results.’

The Cape Fear expedition failed from ignorance of the depth of the river.

When Lord George Germain became one of his Majesty’s principal Secretaries of State, November 10, a commission was issued under the great seal ‘for the restoration of public tranquillity among his Majesty’s deluded subjects in the affected colonies.’ A proclamation said: ‘Apprised of the fatal consequence of the conduct they had adopted, and seeing the determined spirit of the nation to maintain its constitutional rights, they will avail themselves of the means which the justice and benevolence of the supreme legislature have held out to them of being restored to the King’s grace and peace.’ This failed utterly, from ignorance of the depth of opposition in the colonies. Boston was evacuated in March 1776, and Mr. Thompson was sent to England with the news. He was probably thought perfectly qualified to answer every question relative to his Majesty’s service. Cuvier says, ‘La bonne mine du jeune officier, la netteté et l’étendue des renseignements qu’il donna, prévinrent en sa faveur le secrétaire d’État au département de l’Amérique.’ His news caused no great distress, and his information must have reassured the minister, for even in June Lord G. Germain and the Prime Minister wrote to General Howe on the good prospect of an end being put to the rebellion in one campaign. It was the good news from Canada that helped to deceive them.

Mr. Thompson was taken into Lord George Germain’s office, and he was appointed Secretary of the Province of Georgia.

In the autumn of 1777 Thompson was at Bath for his health, drinking the waters. Whilst there he made some experiments on the cohesive strength of different substances. These led to no great results, but he communicated them to Sir Joseph Banks, the new President of the Royal Society.

Sir W. Howe was at this time asking for large reinforcements. He thus wrote to Lord G. Germain from Philadelphia:

‘From the little attention, my Lord, given to my recommendations since the commencement of my command, I am led to hope that I may be relieved from this very painful service wherein I have not the good fortune to enjoy the necessary confidence and support of my superiors, but which I conclude will be extended to Sir Henry Clinton, my presumptive successor.’

In 1778 Mr. Thompson was with Lord G. Germain at his house, Stoneland Lodge, Sussex. Whilst there Thompson made experiments on testing gunpowder, and on a new method of determining the velocity of projectiles. The results were sent to the Royal Society, in 1781, and were published at great length in the ‘Philosophical Transactions.’ One good observation is now of great interest. ‘Being much struck with the accidental discovery of the great degree of heat that pieces acquire when they are fired with powder without any bullet, and being desirous of finding out whether it is a circumstance that obtains universally, I was very attentive to the heat of the barrel after each of the succeeding experiments, and I constantly found the heat sensibly greater when the piece was fired with powder only than when the same charge was made to impel one or more bullets.’

In order to pursue these experiments he went in 1779, on board of the ‘Victory,’ of 110 guns, commanded by his friend Sir Charles Hardy. He passed the whole of the campaign on board of the fleet, and the result of the observations that he then made furnished the materials for a chapter which he contributed to Stalkart’s ‘Treatise on Naval Architecture.’ He added to it a code of signals for the navy, which was not published. In his paper on gunpowder, read in 1797 to the Royal Society, he says:

During a cruise which I made, as a volunteer, in the ‘Victory,’ with the British fleet, under the command of my late worthy friend Sir Charles Hardy, in the year 1779, I had many opportunities of attending to the firing of heavy cannon; for though we were not fortunate enough to come to a general action with the enemy, as is well known, yet, as the men were frequently exercised at the great guns and in firing at marks, and as some of my friends in the fleet, then captains (since made admirals), as the Honourable Keith Stewart, who commanded the ‘Berwick,’ of 74 guns,—Sir Charles Douglas, who commanded the ‘Duke,’ of 98 guns,—and Admiral Macbride, who was then captain of the ‘Bienfaisant,’ of 64 guns, were kind enough, at my request, to make a number of experiments, and particularly by firing a greater number of bullets at once from their heavy guns than ever had been done before, and observing the distances at which they fell in the sea,—I had opportunities of making several very interesting observations, which gave me much new light relative to the action of fired gunpowder.

In 1778 Mr. Thompson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Great must have been the trouble in his office this year. In October 1778, Sir H. Clinton wrote to Lord G. Germain from New York that he was about to send, as he was ordered, ten thousand men to the West Indies and St. Augustine. ‘After a wound in my humble opinion so fatal to the hopes of any future vigour in this army, I trust, my Lord, you cannot wish to keep me in the mortifying command of it.’ ‘You cannot, I am confident, my Lord, desire that I should remain a mournful witness of the debility of an army at whose head, had I been unshackled by instructions, I might have indulged expectations of rendering serious service to my country.’

Lord G. Germain thought that much good would be done by encouraging the provincial forces, and by promising to the provincial officers half-pay and permanent rank in America.

On January 23, 1779, he wrote to Sir H. Clinton: ‘It is likewise his Majesty’s pleasure that you publish and make known to his provincial corps, as also to all others his loyal subjects in America, his gracious intention to support and protect them by making the rank of the officers permanent in America, and allowing them half-pay upon the reduction of their regiments, in the same manner as the officers of British reduced regiments are paid.’

This order for promotion immediately excited the discontent of the officers in the army. In their memorial to Sir H. Clinton they ask him ‘to prevent our being superseded by officers of yesterday who have served under us.’

In 1780 proposals were made to Lord G. Germain to revive the Association of Loyalists in America, ‘so that Government, at a very moderate expense, might be served by a considerable number of men, and Captain Murray offered on behalf of Brigadier Ruggles, who had been Brigadier-General of Provincial Forces in America during the last war, Deputy Surveyor-General of the Woods, and late his Majesty’s council in the province of Massachusetts Bay in New England, to raise and to command a regiment of light dragoons, to be called the King’s American Dragoons.’

Lord G. Germain wrote to Sir H. Clinton, June 7, 1780, from Whitehall:

The services of Brigadier Ruggles in the last war, and the influence he still retains in those provinces of North America, where his character, his honour, and his name are respected, made me long desirous of seeing that gentleman engaged in the King’s service. The enclosed plan of raising a regiment of dragoons was communicated to me by Captain Murray, by authority of Brigadier Ruggles. It appeared to me so fair and so disinterested, that I laid it before his Majesty, and it so far met with his royal approbation that he permitted me to transmit the plan to you. And if the public service requires any provincial cavalry to be raised, his Majesty would be pleased to see Mr. Ruggles placed at the head of such a corps, where he may have an opportunity of again acting with that zeal and spirit which formerly did him so much honour.

In September 1780 Mr. Thompson was made Under-Secretary of State for the Northern Department by Lord George Germain.

In May 1781 the Inspector-General of Provincial Forces wrote to the Under-Secretary, Thompson, to say that the distress for the want of cavalry appointments was beyond conception. ‘Had all the appointments,’ he says, ‘for Brigadier-General Ruggles come out, it would have afforded us a small temporary supply; but only twenty-five helmets have yet appeared.’

Lord G. Germain then moved the Treasury to send fresh and large supplies, and said he had directed Mr. Thompson, the Deputy Inspector-General of Provincial Forces, to procure patterns and estimates and to give information. Lord North, Lord Palmerston, and Sir R. Sutton referred the question of quality and quantity to the Adjutant-General, who reported that ‘it would be doing injustice to Mr. Thompson not to declare that, as far as my judgment goes, he will not only gain great credit for himself, but at the same time essentially serve the public by his disinterested and very attentive execution of the trust that has been reposed in him on this occasion.’ Their lordships directed Mr. Thompson forthwith to provide the several articles mentioned, and allowed him one and a half per cent. commission. The sum he received at this time was one hundred and twenty pounds.

Among the exiles in London was Judge Curwen, of Salem, Massachusetts. He kept a journal, and in it he gives a picture of Thompson, May 23, 1781:

On returning home I found a letter from Arthur Savage, informing me of Mr. Thompson’s compliments and wish to see me at eleven o’clock to-morrow at his lodgings.

May 24.—Went early, in order to be at Mr. Benjamin Thompson’s in time, and being a little before, heard he was not returned from Lord George Germain’s, where he always breakfasts, dines, and sups, so great a favourite is he. To kill half an hour, I loitered to the park through the palace, and on second return found him at his lodgings. He received me in a friendly manner, taking me by the hand, talked with great freedom, and promised to remember and serve me in the way I proposed to him [probably the securing the continuance of his allowance unreduced]. Promises are easily made, and genteel delusive encouragement, the staple article of trade, belonging to the courtier’s profession, I put no hopes on the fair appearances of outward behaviour, though it is uncandid to suppose all mean to deceive. Some wish to do a service who have it not in their power; all wish to be thought of importance and significancy, and this often leads to deceit. This young man, when a shop-lad to my next neighbour, ever appeared active, good-natured, and sensible; by a strange concurrence of events, he is now Under-Secretary to the American Secretary of State, Lord George Germain, a secretary to Georgia, inspector of all the clothing sent to America, and Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant of Horse Dragoons at New York. His income arising from these sources is, I have been told, near seven thousand a year—a sum infinitely beyond his most sanguine expectations. He is, besides, a member of the Royal Society. It is said he is of an ingenious turn, an inventive imagination, and, by being on a cruise in Channel service with Sir Charles Hardy, has formed a more regular and better-digested system for signals than that heretofore used. He seems to be of a happy, even temper in general deportment, and reported of an excellent heart; peculiarly respectful to Americans that fall in his way.

This statement of the income of Thompson was certainly enormously exaggerated. That about this time he was appointed to the King’s American Dragoons the following autograph letter, now in the library of the Royal Institution, shows:

FROM LORD GEORGE GERMAIN TO SIR H. CLINTON.

Stoneland Lodge, September 30, 1781.

Sir,—I beg leave to introduce Mr. Thompson to you, and at the same time to thank you for the favour and protection which you have shewn him in giving him the command of a regiment of light dragoons, which, I trust, will be raised in a manner to entitle the officers of it to your approbation. Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson shows at least a spirit and zeal for the service, in quitting for a time an agreeable and profitable civil situation, in the hopes of being useful to his country, and by his military conduct, shewing himself not unworthy of the protection which you have granted to him. If you do him the honour to converse with him, you will find him well informed, and, as far as theory goes, a good officer in whatever you may think fit to employ him. I can answer for his honour and his ability, and I am persuaded he will ever feel himself attached by gratitude to you for the very kind and obliging manner in which you have protected him and the regiment under his command.

I am, Sir, with great regard, your Excellency’s faithful, humble servant,

George Germain.

On October 4, 1781, Colonel Thompson appointed Mr. Fisher, a clerk in his office, as his attorney, to receive his pay (thirteen shillings daily) and to attend to his clothing commission. He soon after left England in the ‘Rotterdam,’ a fifty-gun ship, for New York, but contrary winds compelled him to disembark at Charlestown (South Carolina).

In his paper on Gunpowder he shows that he was busy during his passage:

His Majesty having been graciously pleased to permit me to take out with me from England four pieces of light artillery, constructed under the direction of the late Lieutenant-General Desaguliers, with a large proportion of ammunition, I made a great number of interesting experiments with these guns, and also with the ship’s guns on board the ships of war in which I made my passage to and from America.

He arrived towards the end of December. Lord Cornwallis had surrendered, and Charlestown, in Carolina, was in great danger for want of reinforcements and food.

Early in 1782 Lord G. Germain wrote to General Leslie, who commanded at Charlestown: ‘I agree with you that mounted troops are the fittest for service in the southern provinces, but I cannot encourage you to expect that any will be sent from home; I am glad, however, you will have Colonel Thompson’s assistance in forming what you have. His offer to serve in your army until the season for action to the northward arrives corresponds with that public spirit and zeal for the King’s service which prompted him to quit his civil situation and engage in the military line.’

General Leslie wrote to Sir H. Clinton, January 29: ‘The army is now well clothed and recovered from the sickness and fatigue it underwent during the last summer.

‘The several detached corps of cavalry have been incorporated into distinct ones under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson. From the unwearied attention and diligent efforts of that officer they are become respectable, and I have everything to expect from this improvement.’

On February 20 Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson wrote to the Honourable Lieutenant-General Leslie that he has not been so fortunate as to meet with the enemy he had come in search of; but the following despatch was sent by him on February 25, 1782:

Duxcent’s Plantation, Monday, February 25, 1782.

Sir,—I did not expect, after the affair of yesterday, the enemy would so soon have put it in my power to congratulate you upon another defeat of their troops by those which you have done me the honour to put under my command. We had the good fortune this morning to fall in with a chosen corps, under the command of General Marion in person, which we attacked and totally routed, killing a considerable number of them, taking sixteen prisoners, and driving General Marion and the greatest part of his army into the Santee, where it is probable a great many of them perished.

After resting and refreshing our horses at the plantation where we halted last night, at nine o’clock this morning the cavalry marched back to the Santee, to the ground where we fell in with the enemy yesterday. The infantry marched at the same time for this place, and we promised to join them in the afternoon.

We had advanced about nine miles from the place we left in the morning, when, coming in through a gate-way to the cleared grounds of a plantation, we discovered the enemy about three hundred yards distant, directly in front of us, drawn up in the area between the negroe huts belonging to the plantation.

As soon as the troops were formed I ordered a charge to be sounded, and the line moved forwards. The enemy also sounded a charge, but, instead of coming out to meet us, they were discovered going off by their right in the greatest hurry and confusion, and attempting to gain a swamp that was upon the banks of the river on that side. We immediately charged after them at full speed, and had the good fortune to come up in time to cut off a great part of their rear. Those that gained the swamp were pursued, and many of them were killed in attempting to get into the river, and others were shot and drowned in attempting to swim to the opposite shore. We took near forty horses, many of which are capital chargers.

After the action we collected at our leisure all the cattle from the rebel plantations in that quarter, and have sent them down the road with a proper escort. We shall follow as soon as the troops are refreshed.

In this last affair with the enemy, as well as during the whole time I have had the honour to command this detachment, the troops, both officers and men, have behaved in such a manner as to merit my warmest acknowledgment.

I have the honour to be, with perfect respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

R. Thompson.

In the general orders on March 1 the General expressed to the army the opinion he entertained of the merit of Colonel Thompson’s conduct upon this occasion, and of the spirited behaviour of the troops, and to Sir H. Clinton he wrote, March 12, 1782:

I had the honour to inform your Excellency that Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson having offered his service during his stay here, I had appointed him to the command of the cavalry. He has put them in exceeding good order and gained their confidence and affection. I am very happy to inform your Excellency of his success in a late excursion upon the Santee. [An account of the action is then given in the despatch.] I enclose to your Excellency Colonel Thompson’s report to me of this very handsome piece of service, and I assure your Excellency that I have much regret to part with this enterprising young officer, who appears to have an uncommon share of merit and zeal for the service; and could he and his corps be spared to act in this part, where cavalry are so much wanted, I am confident it would tend much to the benefit of his Majesty’s service.

Despatches of this date show that in council also Thompson was as efficient as in the field.

General Leslie wrote to Sir H. Clinton:

I beg to know your Excellency’s opinion with regard to our putting arms into the hands of the negroes. I have desired Colonel Thompson to speak with your Excellency upon the subject, and to make known to you the particulars of our situation in that respect.

On April 11 Colonel Thompson arrived at New York.

Four days afterwards Sir H. Clinton wrote to General Leslie: ‘Those parts of your letters to which you have referred for a more full explanation to Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson, I shall answer after consulting with him upon the subject;’ and he also says: ‘With respect to the disagreeable predicament which you mention Lieutenant-Colonel Balfour and other officers of rank in the Southern army stand in on account of Mr. Green’s threats for Colonel Hayne’s execution, I shall consult Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson, and let you know my sentiments by the earliest opportunity.’

At this time Sir H. Clinton was about to give up the command he had so often petitioned to resign. He had ‘lamented that his happiness was sacrificed to prevent the partial inconvenience which might have arisen from a change,’ and later he wrote: ‘His Majesty’s assent to my petition will crown the many favours of which my heart will ever retain the most grateful remembrance.’

On February 6 General Robinson was appointed to succeed Sir H. Clinton, and soon after Sir Guy Carleton took the command.

Colonel Thompson’s chief business was to complete his regiment, which was encamped about three miles from Flushing, in Long Island. There, on August 1, colours were presented to the regiment by Prince William, then a boy of eighteen in the Royal Navy, accompanied by Admiral Digby. On the 6th, on behalf of himself and the officers of the King’s American Dragoons, Colonel Thompson petitioned Sir Guy Carleton to order them to enjoy the advantages stipulated on the completion of the regiment; and at the end of August Sir Guy Carleton notifies in the general orders that Colonel Thompson and his officers are entitled to permanent rank in America.

In September Colonel Thompson’s name is to be found first on a list of six agents, selected to act for them by those Royalists who were willing to emigrate with their families from Long Island to Nova Scotia.

Two months later it appears, from a bill, that he was building chimneys in the barracks at Huntingdon, Long Island, where his regiment was stationed, when the treaty of peace between America and England was made in Paris without the consent and even without the knowledge of France.

In December every preparation was made for a sudden attack of the French upon New York, and orders were issued by General Robinson in case that event took place. Alarm posts for each of the different corps and the details of the duties of each corps were arranged. ‘If an attack was made on Huntingdon, the troops were immediately to assemble and march to the support of Colonel Thompson.’

Early in the spring active measures were proposed against the French in the West Indies. Peace with France stopped these plans, and on April 11, 1783, Colonel Thompson obtained leave of absence, in order that he might return to London to urge the claims of the provincial officers to rank and to half-pay.

Some original documents in the [appendix] to this chapter will show the energy, the ability, and the perseverance of Colonel Thompson when he arrived in London.

On August 17 Sir Guy Carleton issued an order that all the men who wished to be discharged in America, should hold themselves in readiness to embark for Nova Scotia; and in October the King’s American Dragoons were disbanded on the lands appropriated to them, many miles up the river St. John, on the north side of the Bay of Fundy.

On October 25, 1783, Colonel Thompson’s half-pay began, and it continued for the remainder of his life. He had at this time began a new career. He determined to go abroad, intending to take part in a war which was then expected between Austria and the Turks.

Gibbon wrote from Dover, September 17, 1783, to Lord Sheffield:

Last night the wind was so high that the vessel could not stir from the harbour; this day it is brisk and fair. We are flattered with the hope of making Calais Harbour by the same tide in three hours and a half, but any delay will leave the disagreeable option of a tottering boat or a tossing night. What a cursed thing to live in an island! this step is more awkward than the whole journey. The triumvirate of this memorable embarkation will consist of the grand Gibbon, Henry Laurens, Esq., President of Congress, and Mr. Secretary, Colonel, Admiral, Philosopher Thompson, attended by three horses, who are not the most agreeable fellow-passengers. If we survive, I will finish and seal my letter at Calais. Our salvation shall be ascribed to the prayers of my lady and aunt, for I do believe they both pray.

Boulogne.

Instead of Calais the wind has driven us to Boulogne, where we landed in the evening, without much noise and difficulty.... Laurens has read the pamphlet, and thinks it has done much mischief. A good sign![2]

Professor Pictet, of Geneva, has published in the ‘Bibliothèque universelle’ the notes he made of a conversation with Count Rumford regarding his life at this time. He says:

A purely accidental circumstance had a decisive influence over his destiny. He arrived at Strasburg, where the Prince Maximilian of Deux Ponts, now [1801] Elector of Bavaria, then Field-Marshal in the service of France, was in garrison. This prince, commanding on parade, sees among the spectators an officer in a foreign uniform, mounted on a fine English horse, whom he addresses. Thompson informs him that he comes from serving in the American war. The Prince, in pointing out to him many officers who surround him, says, ‘These gentlemen were in the same war, but against you; they belonged to the Royal Regiment of Deux Ponts, that acted in America under the orders of Count Rochambeau.’

They engaged in conversation, which became very animated. Colonel Thompson being invited to dine with the Prince, met at the table a number of French officers whom he had encountered on the field in America. They talked at length of the events of this war. The Colonel produced his portfolio, which contained exact plans of the principal engagements, the forts, the sieges, and an excellent collection of maps. One and another recognised the place or the interesting incident which was recalled to him. They conversed a long while, and separated promising to meet again. The Prince was passionately devoted to his profession and intensely eager for information. He invited the Colonel for the next day. They resumed with the same zest the conversation of yesterday. When at last the traveller took leave, the Prince engaged him to pass through Munich, and gave him a friendly letter to the Elector of Bavaria, his uncle.

The season was advanced, and he was in haste to reach Vienna. He had promised to stop at Munich two or three days at most; but he passed there five days, and then did not leave but with regret a city where the tokens of the regard of the sovereign and the attentions of different classes of society were extended to him with that frank cordiality which so eminently distinguishes the Bavarian nation. He received equally at Vienna the most flattering welcome, and was presented at Court and mingled in the first society. There he passed a part of the winter, and, learning that the war against the Turks was not to be carried on, he yielded to the attractive memories of Munich, and, passing through Venice, where he stopped some weeks, and by the Tyrol, he returned to Brompton by the end of the winter of 1783-84.

In February he was knighted by George the Third, and he received permission to enter into the service of the Duke of Bavaria.

From Munich, July 6, Thompson wrote to Sir Joseph Banks, to tell him that his Electoral Highness had been asked to become a Fellow of the Royal Society. He said:

I should have done myself the honour to have written to you upon this subject some time ago, but I waited for a favourable opportunity to speak to his Electoral Highness about it.

It was only a few days since I came into waiting as aide-de-camp to his Most Serene Highness. I shall continue about his person till September, when I purpose making a tour for a couple of months in the mountains of Tyrol, upon the confines of Bavaria, and the dominions of the Bishop of Saltzburg, a country extremely interesting in several points of view.

---

He gave his direction as ‘M. le Chevalier Thompson, colonel et aide-de-camp général au service de S.A.S. l’Élect. Palatin, Duc de Bavière.’

He ended, ‘I am, dear Sir, with sincere regard and respect, your most obedient and most humble servant.’

He again wrote to Sir Joseph Banks on July 24. He began by asking if he could have one of the two hundred medals for Cook’s voyages given to Fellows of the Royal Society, and he ended with a postscript:

I beg you would make my best compliments to Mr. Blagden when you see him, and tell him I hope he will not entirely forget an old correspondent who remembers him with great affection.

Cuvier, in his éloge of Count Rumford, says of the Electors of Bavaria:

Les souverains agrandis à l’époque des guerres de religion, par suite de leur zèle pour le catholicisme, avaient longtemps porté les marques de ce zèle bien au-delà de ce que réclame un catholicisme éclairé: ils encourageaient la dévotion et ne faisaient rien pour l’industrie; on comptait dans leurs états plus de couvents que de fabriques. L’armée y était à peu près nulle; l’ignorance et l’inertie dominaient dans toutes les classes de la société.

The first work in Bavaria of Sir Benjamin Thompson was to rearrange the military service and introduce a new system of order, discipline, and economy among the troops. In the execution of this commission he says: ‘I was ever mindful of that great and important truth that no political arrangement can be really good except in so far as it contributes to the general good of society. I have endeavoured to unite the interest of the soldier with the interest of civil society, and to render the military force, even in the times of peace, subservient to the public good.’ To make soldiers citizens, and citizens soldiers, the soldier was better paid, better clothed, better housed, better taught, better occupied, better amused, and, above all, allowed to earn money and to spend it as he pleased. Fixed garrisons were formed, and the army was used as a means of introducing useful improvements into the country. Thus military gardens were formed to introduce the culture of the potato. Workhouses for manufacturing clothing for the army were founded, first at Mannheim for the troops of the Palatinate and Duchies of Juliers and Bergen, and a few months afterwards at Munich for the fifteen Bavarian regiments. The greatest order and economy were used in the military manufactory and magazine, and after six years Sir B. Thompson wrote that the net profit on the various trades and manufactures in the Munich Workhouse up to that time was 100,000 florins; and he could refer to its growing reputation, its extensive connexions, which reached even to foreign countries, to the punctuality with which all its engagements were fulfilled, to its unimpeached credit, and to its growing wealth. The amount of orders executed in the sixth year of its establishment did not fall much short of half a million of florins.

Among the various measures that occurred to Sir B. Thompson by which the military of the country might be made subservient to the public good in time of peace, ‘none,’ he says, ‘appeared to me of so much importance as that of employing the army in clearing the country of beggars, thieves, and other vagabonds, and in watching over the public tranquillity.’

The beggars swarmed everywhere. They were dissolute, sturdy, shameless, importunate robbers.

A system of mounted police was formed throughout the country by four regiments of cavalry. Means were taken, first, to furnish suitable employment for those who were able to work; and, secondly, to provide the necessary assistance for those who, from age, sickness, or other bodily infirmities, were unable by their industry to provide for themselves.

‘To make vicious and abandoned people happy, it has generally been supposed necessary first to make them virtuous. But why not reverse this order? Why not make them first happy and then virtuous?’

A large building, once a manufactory, was taken in one of the suburbs of Munich; arrangements were made for a kitchen, an eating-room, a bakehouse, workshops for carpenters, smiths, turners, tool-makers, spinners of cotton wool and worsted, for weavers of all kinds, a dyers’ shop, a fulling mill, a washhouse.

Everything was done that could be desired to make the inmates really comfortable by good food, raiment, and cleanliness. The rooms were scrupulously clean, well warmed, and well lighted; the people were well fed, well taught, and well paid for their work. ‘They had the kindest usage from every person, from the highest to the lowest. No ill usage, no harsh language, was permitted; and at the end of five years not a blow had been given to anyone, not even to a child by its instructor,’ and Sir B. Thompson could say: ‘The pleasure I have had in the success of this experiment is much easier to be conceived than described; would to God that my success might encourage others to follow my example! If it were generally known how little trouble and how little expense are required to do much good (the heartfelt satisfaction which arises from relieving the wants and promoting the happiness of our fellow-creatures is so great), I am persuaded acts of the most essential charity would be much more frequent, and the mass of misery among mankind would consequently be much lessened.’

New Year’s Day having been long specially set apart for giving alms early that morning in 1790, three regiments of infantry, with their officers, were stationed in the streets, and Sir B. Thompson assembled the magistrates and asked their assistance to take up all the beggars and to provide for the poor. Accompanied by the chief magistrate, he went into the street, and the first beggar who asked for alms he arrested with his own hands, and orders were given to all the other officers, who also were accompanied with magistrates, to do the same. In less than an hour no beggar was to be found in the streets. They were taken to the Town Hall, inscribed in printed lists, and then told to go to the newly-erected Military Workhouse. An address was opened to the public, asking for perfectly voluntary subscriptions to put an end to begging; monthly sums were given, and daily supplies of bread, meat, and soup were collected.[3]

Several good spinners of hemp were engaged at the House of Industry, and this was the first occupation of the poor. Knitting, sewing, and carding wool were early occupations, but the object to be desired was woollen work for the clothing of the army. If the poor did well, they were rewarded; if they came late, their food was lessened. They slept at their own homes, and when ill they received relief at home. Everything was done to encourage industry and emulation. ‘To incite activity and inspire with a true spirit of persevering industry, it was necessary to fire the poor with emulation—to awaken in them a dormant passion whose influence they had never felt; the love of honest fame; an ardent desire to excel, the love of glory, or by what other pompous name this passion, the most noble and most beneficent that warms the human heart, can be distinguished.’[4]

To excite emulation praise, distinctions, rewards are necessary; and these were all employed.

The House of Industry for the Poor and the Military Workhouse were quite separate in their management, though they were so dependent on each other that neither of them could subsist alone; one building served for both.

Twice yearly small sums were given to the poor to assist them in paying for lodgings, and ultimately a large house was bought and fitted up as an hospital for those who were infirm and unable to take care of themselves.

Means were adopted for giving relief to those who never were beggars, but who, from poverty and inability to provide the necessaries of life, were involved in distresses and difficulties which they bore in silence.

Persons of distinguished birth even sent to the House of Industry at Munich for flax, or wool, or linen, which they manufactured into goods, and received the usual amount of wages; and some who had been accustomed to sumptuous fare took the soup furnished gratis from the public kitchen to the poor.

The warming, lighting, clothing, feeding, occupying the poor, seemed the sole object of all Sir B. Thompson thought and of all he did. His success must be told in his own words.

My hopes of engaging others to follow my example are chiefly founded upon my success in the enterprise. Then why should I not mention even the marks of affectionate regard and respect which I received from the poor people for whose happiness I interested myself? And will it be reckoned vanity if I mention the concern which the poor of Munich expressed in so affecting a manner when I was dangerously ill? That they went publicly in a body in procession to the cathedral church, where they had divine service performed, and put up public prayers for my delivery. That four years afterwards, on hearing that I was again dangerously ill at Naples, they of their own accord set apart an hour each evening after they had finished their work in the Military Workhouse to pray for me.

Let the reader, if he can, picture my situation. Sick in bed, worn out by intense application, and dying, as everybody thought, a martyr in the cause to which I had devoted myself, let him imagine, I say, my feelings upon hearing the confused noise of the prayers of a multitude of people, who were passing by in the streets, upon being told that it was the poor of Munich, many hundreds in number, who were going in procession to the church to put up public prayers for me; public prayers for me! for a private person, a stranger, a Protestant! I believe it is the first instance of the kind that ever happened; and I dare venture to affirm that no proof could well be stronger than this that the measures adopted for making these poor people happy were really successful; and let it be remembered that this fact is what I am most anxious to make appear IN THE CLEAREST AND MOST SATISFACTORY MANNER.

Cuvier says: ‘Il convient lui-même que cet acte spontané de reconnaissance religieuse en faveur d’un homme d’une autre communion lui parut la plus touchante des récompenses; mais il ne se dissimulait pas qu’il en avait obtenu une autre qui sera plus durable. En effet, c’est en travaillant pour les pauvres qu’il a fait ses plus belles découvertes....

‘Chacun sait que dans ses plus belles espérances on eut pour objet la nature de la chaleur et de la lumière, ainsi que les lois de leur propagation; et c’était là effectivement ce qu’il importait le plus de bien connaître pour nourrir, vêtir, chauffer et éclairer avec économie un grand rassemblement d’hommes.’

Other measures for the benefit of the country were carried out at the same time.

A Military Academy was formed, principally with a view to bring forward extraordinary talents and employ them in the civil or military public service. Anyone was admissible. The children of the meanest mechanics and day-labourers, provided they had very extraordinary natural genius, a healthy constitution, and a good character, were educated. It was an establishment designed for the encouragement of genius, and for calling forth into public utility talents which would otherwise remain buried and lost in obscurity.

Measures were adopted for improving the breed of horses and horned cattle in Bavaria and the Palatinate. An attempt was made to put an end to usury in Munich and to improve the highways and public roads, by employing the soldiery in repairing them and preserving order and public tranquillity on them.

A new English Garden was formed, beginning upon the ramparts of the town. It was nearly six English miles in circumference. Within the Garden was a fine and very valuable farm, with thirty of the finest cows procured from Switzerland, Flanders, the Tyrol, and other places. There was a public coffee-house in the middle of the Garden for refreshment and public resort.

The scientific work which Sir B. Thompson did whilst in the service of the Elector of Bavaria between 1783 and 1794, shows his energy and originality, his accuracy and his depth.

When at Mannheim in July 1785 he made experiments in the presence of Professor Hemmer, of the Electoral Academy of Sciences of Mannheim, on the propagation of heat through various substances; on the increased difficulty of conduction of heat through the torricellian vacuum; on the effect of humidity in increasing the conducting power of the air; and on the effect of air of different degrees of density. The Duke ordered the meteorological instrument maker to the academy at Mannheim to come to Munich, and to spare neither labour nor expense in providing the complete apparatus necessary for the experiments.

These experiments, on the relative conducting powers of mercury, water, air, and a torricellian vacuum, were read to the Royal Society, March 9, 1786.

He then proceeded to make experiments on the relative warmth of various substances used in making artificial clothing; relative quantities of the same substance; different qualities of substance chemically, as charcoal, ashes, dust. All his experiments indicated that the air which occupies the interstices of substances used in forming coverings for confining heat acts a very important part in that operation. Air is a perfect non-conductor of heat. These experiments were chiefly made in 1787. They were not read before the Royal Society until January 19, 1792.

Early in the winter of 1787, as soon as the cold was sufficiently intense, he began to repeat the experiments of Dr. Fordyce (‘Transactions of the Royal Society,’ vol. lxxv.) on the weight said to be acquired by water in the act of freezing; and, being possessed of a most excellent balance belonging to the Duke of Bavaria, he soon came to the conclusion that all attempts to discover any effect of heat upon the apparent weights of bodies would be fruitless.

He had previously, in April 1785, convinced himself of the errors that arose from currents of air and from the drying of the cords by which the scales were hung.

These experiments were made into a paper entitled ‘An Inquiry concerning the Weight Ascribed to Heat.’ This was read before the Royal Society, May 2, 1799.

In May and June 1786 he made experiments on the production of air from water exposed to light. These were read before the Royal Society, February 15, 1787.

When engaged in his experiments on the conducting powers of various bodies with respect to heat, and particularly of such substances as are used for clothing, he made experiments on the relation between their conducting power and their power of absorbing moisture, but found none. Flannel and fur, contrary to his expectation, absorbed much more moisture from the air than silk and cotton. On this he forms an idea of the good of wearing flannel. This, the weakest of his papers, was read to the Royal Society, March 22, 1787.

In the spring of 1791 a large building was erected in the neighbourhood of Munich, on the ground destined for the exercise of the artillery, where a most complete apparatus was put up for measuring the velocities of cannon bullets by the recoil of the gun, and also by the pendulum at the same time, and with this apparatus a great number of interesting experiments were made.

He observed that the force of the charge was always sensibly increased when the gun was discharged by firing a pistol (constructed for that use) into the vent, instead of using a priming and a common match for firing off the gun.

These experiments were continued in 1792, and in 1793 they were shown to Dr. Blagden, who was in Munich during the absence of Sir B. Thompson in Italy for his health.

The principal objects in view were to determine the expansive force of the elastic vapour generated in the combustion of gunpowder in its various states of condensation, and to ascertain the ratio of its elasticity to its density, and to measure the utmost force of this fluid in its most dense state.

In order to find the most economical method of lighting his Workhouse at Munich, he devised a new way of measuring the relative quantities of lights by their shadows. His arbitrary standard was a London made Argand lamp. He first experimented on the resistance of air to light, then on the loss of light in its passage through different kinds of glass, and in its reflection from a plate glass mirror, then on the relative quantities of oil burnt by different lamps and relative quantities of light emitted by different substances, and lastly on the transparency of flame.

He made these experiments into a paper on the ‘Relative Intensities of the Light Emitted by Luminous Bodies,’ and it was read before the Royal Society, February 6, 1794; and on February 20 another paper was read, being an ‘Account of some Experiments on Coloured Shadows,’ and he came to the conclusion that our eyes are not always to be believed, even with respect to the presence or absence of colours.

For his national and scientific work he received various honours between 1783 and 1794.

In 1785 he was elected member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, which had been established in 1758, and he was made chamberlain to the Elector.

In 1786 the King of Poland, at the request of the Elector of Bavaria, conferred on him the Order of St. Stanislaus. This was done because the statutes of Bavaria did not allow a foreigner to receive any national honours.

In 1787, when in Prussia, he was made a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences.

In 1788 the Elector made him Major-General of Cavalry and Privy Councillor of State, and he was placed at the head of the war department.

On May 29, 1789, he was elected a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he was made Lieutenant-General of the Bavarian Armies and received the command of a regiment of artillery.

In 1791, in the interval between the death of the Emperor Joseph and the coronation of Leopold II., the Elector of Bavaria was one of the Vicars of the Empire, and he made Sir Benjamin Thompson a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, and gave him the Order of the White Eagle.

Early in the following year the wife of Count Rumford, who had been a great invalid, and who had lived with her son by her first husband and with her daughter, the child of Rumford, died at the age of 52. Her own property had given her every comfort that her ill health required.

At the end of this year Count Rumford was in correspondence with his early friend Colonel Baldwin, through whom probably for some time previously he had sent money to his mother. He wrote to Colonel Baldwin from Munich, January 18, 1793:

You could hardly conceive the heartfelt satisfaction it would give me to pay a visit to my native country. Should I be kindly received? Are the remains of party spirit and political persecutions done away? Would it be necessary to ask leave of the State?

It is possible you may see me at Woburn before you are aware of it. I wish exceedingly to be personally acquainted with my daughter. I wish to know her real character, and how I must go to work to lay a solid foundation for her future happiness. I wish once more to have the satisfaction of seeing my most kind and affectionate mother. I wish to prove to her how dear she is to me, and how grateful I am for all her goodness to me. My dear, beloved parent! What would I give to see her, were it but for one hour! I should be much obliged to you for any accounts you may from time to time send me of her situation, and of others, my friends, in your neighbourhood. Desiring to be remembered to all those of my old acquaintance who interest themselves in my welfare, I am, my dear Sir, with unfeigned regard and much esteem, yours most affectionately.

Count Rumford, in the spring of 1793, left Munich for Italy on account of his health. He was absent sixteen months. At Verona the directors of the two great hospitals La Pieta and La Misericordia, containing 350 and 500 poor, accepted his offer to rebuild the kitchens. Seven-eighths of the fire-wood were saved, and he made arrangements to supply the poor with clothing from the Munich House of Industry at a saving of twenty per cent.

On May 11, 1793, Sir C. Blagden, who was travelling with Lord Palmerston, wrote to Sir Joseph Banks from Rome:

Count Rumford is come into Italy. I have just received a very friendly letter from him, in which he desires me to appoint a meeting. It will probably be at Milan.

Three months later he wrote from Augsburg:

Thompson, now Count Rumford, met me by appointment at Pavia. Volta showed us his experiments on animal electricity, and said he had sent off his paper for the Royal Society about three weeks before, probably not time enough for it to be read before the vacation. I thought his experiments proved that there is no particular animal electricity, and that the animals serve only the purpose of very delicate electrometers; but they leave other circumstances unexplained.

On his return to London Sir C. Blagden wrote on November 21 to Sir Joseph Banks:

From Italy I brought two papers by Count Rumford, one on ‘Coloured Shadows,’ the other on a ‘Method of Measuring the Comparative Intensities of the Light Emitted by Luminous Bodies.’ In the former he shows neatly enough that the colours ascribed to these shadows depend entirely on comparing them with light of another colour. The method referred to in the second paper is that of the intensity of the shadows produced by the different luminous bodies. These two papers will furnish matter for nearly three meetings of the Royal Society.

Count Rumford had another serious illness in Naples in the early part of 1794. He returned to Munich in August.

He left Munich for London in 1795. He had spent the year after his return from Italy in comparative quiet. He was unfit for public business and he chiefly occupied himself by writing out the results that he had obtained. He thus made a series of essays.

In order to publish these in England and to meet his daughter, who was about to come to him from America, and to recover further his health, he obtained leave of absence from the Elector of Bavaria.

In his paper on Gunpowder in 1781 he said he would make experiments on the strength of various bodies. In 1797, when he had another paper in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ on this subject, he added this note:

Since writing the above I have met with a misfortune which has put it out of my power to fulfil this promise. On my return to England from Germany, in October 1795, after an absence of eleven years, I was stopped in my post-chaise in St. Paul’s Churchyard, in London, at six o’clock in the evening, and robbed of a trunk which was behind my carriage, containing all my private papers and my original notes and observations on philosophical subjects. By this cruel robbery I have been deprived of the fruits of the labours of my whole life, and have lost all that I held most valuable. This most severe blow has left an impression on my mind which I feel that nothing will ever be able entirely to remove. It is the more painful to me, as it has clouded my mind with suspicions that never can be cleared up.

These essays were published at different times separately between 1796 and 1802. The two first volumes were reprinted in 1800.

His first essay gave an account of an establishment for the poor in Munich; the second was on establishments for the poor in general. It contains the germ of the Royal Institution.

This was a ‘proposal for forming in London by private subscription an establishment for feeding the poor and giving them useful employment, and also for furnishing food at a cheap rate to others who may stand in need of such assistance, connected with an institution for introducing and bringing forward into general use new inventions and improvements, particularly such as relate to the management of heat and the saving of fuel, and to various other mechanical contrivances by which domestic comfort and economy may be promoted, submitted to the public by A.B.’ Dated January 1, 1796. Count Rumford begins by saying that no person shall find means to make a job of the proposed establishment. That the general arrangement of the establishment and all its details shall be left to the author of these proposals, who will be responsible for their success. He engages, however, in the prosecution of this business to adhere faithfully to the plan here proposed, and never to depart from it on any pretence whatever.

He proposed first to establish a public kitchen with every useful invention and improvement by which fuel may be saved.

As soon as the measures for feeding the poor and giving them employment are carried into execution the secondary object will be attended to—the formation of a grand repository of all kinds of useful mechanical inventions, particularly such as relate to furnishing houses and are calculated to promote domestic comfort and economy.

He concluded thus: ‘The author of these proposals will think himself most amply repaid for any trouble he may have taken in the execution of this scheme by the heartfelt satisfaction he will enjoy in the reflection of having been instrumental in doing essential service to mankind.’

In the summer of 1796 a conversation took place between the Bishop of Durham, Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Bernard, and the Honourable Edward James Eliot, and in consequence of this a society was formed for encouraging industry and promoting the welfare of the poor.

The object of this Society was everything that concerned the happiness of the poor, everything by which their comforts could be increased; to correct the abuses of workhouses; to assist the poor in placing out their children; to add to and meliorate their means of subsistence by public kitchens, by the union of liberal and benevolent minds, by circulating information and by personal assistance and influence.

The Bishop of Durham and Mr. Thomas Bernard were the chief contributors to the funds. Mr. Bernard was the third son of Sir Francis Bernard, Governor of New Jersey and Massachusetts Bay. He was a graduate of Harvard College, New England. He was the original promoter of the School for the Indigent Blind, of an Institution for the Protection and Instruction of Climbing Boys, of a Society for the Relief of Poor Neighbours in Distress, of the Cancer Institution, of the London Fever Hospital. He was also the founder of the British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom, and the originator of the Alfred Club.

The first meeting of the new Society was held on December 21, 1796, when the King declared himself the patron of it. On February 24, 1797, the Society resolved that, ‘in consideration of the extraordinary services of Count Rumford for the benefit of the poor, and as a testimony of the respect and esteem with which this Society regards his services in the promotion of the general objects of the institution, he be elected and declared a member of the Society and one of the general committee for life.’

In consequence Count Rumford wrote to Thomas Bernard, Esq., from Germany:

Munich, April 28, 1797.

I feel myself very highly honoured by the distinguished mark of esteem and regard which the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor has conferred on me, and I beg leave through you to return the Society my respectful and grateful acknowledgments.

This flattering proof of the approbation of those most respectable persons who compose the Society will tend very powerfully to encourage me to persevere in those endeavours to promote the important objects they have in view, by which I first obtained their notice and esteem.

I am very sanguine in my expectations of the good which will be done by this Society; they will, however, be able to do much more by examples—by models that can be seen and felt—than by anything that can be said or written.

The following year he wrote:

Munich, May 13, 1798.

The rapid progress you are making in your most interesting and laudable undertakings affords me a high degree of satisfaction. It proves that I was not mistaken when I concluded that, notwithstanding the alarming progress of luxury and corruption of taste and of morals in England, there is still good sense and energy to be found, even in the highest classes of society, where the influx of wealth has operated most powerfully. Go on, my dear sir, and be assured that when you shall have put doing good in fashion, you will have done all that human wisdom can do to retard and prolong the decline of a great and powerful nation that has arrived at, or passed, the zenith of human glory.

And again:

Munich, June 8, 1798.

I have received your letter from Brighton of the 12th ult. You can hardly imagine the high degree of pleasure and satisfaction which I feel at your success in your most laudable undertakings. Go on, my dear sir, and be assured that you will contribute more essentially to the revival of taste and morals, of energy, industry, benevolence, and prosperity in your favoured country than all the speculators and reformers in the three kingdoms.

When society is arrived at a certain degree of torpid indifference and enervation of mind and body, which are the unavoidable effects of wealth, luxury, and inordinate indulgence, mankind must either be allured or shamed into action. Precepts and admonitions have no effect on them.

As they are too indolent to take the trouble either to investigate or to choose, they must be led to acts of useful benevolence as they are led in everything else—by fashion; when you shall have rendered it perfectly ridiculous for a man of fashion and fortune to have the appearance of being insensible to the most noble and most delightful of human enjoyments—that which results from doing good—you will have done more for the relief of the poor than all that the Poor Laws can ever effect. Deeply impressed with the necessity of rendering it fashionable to care for the poor and indigent, and contribute to their relief and comfort, in order to diffuse in England that spirit of active benevolence you are kindling, I am apt to insist, perhaps with too much prolixity, on that important point.

I am anxious to hear of the execution of your plan with regard to Bridewell. A well arranged House of Industry is much wanted in London. It is indeed absolutely necessary to the success of your undertaking, for there must be something to see and to touch, if I may use the expression, otherwise people in general will have but very faint, imperfect, and transitory ideas of those important and highly interesting objects with which you must make them acquainted in order to their becoming zealous converts to our new philosophy, and useful members of our community. Pray read once more the ‘Proposals,’ published in my second essay. I really think that a public establishment like that there described might easily be formed in London, and that it would produce infinite good. I will come to London to assist you in its execution whenever you will in good earnest undertake it.

The third essay was on ‘Food and Feeding the Poor; Rumford Soup and Soup-Kitchens.’ The fourth on ‘Chimney Fire-Places.’ The fifth on ‘Several Public Institutions Founded in Bavaria; on Nurseries for Genius; for Horses and for Cattle.’

During 1797 and 1798 Rumford published in England a second volume containing four essays.

These were on the ‘Management of Fire and the Economy of Fuel;’ on the ‘Propagation of Heat in Fluids,’ extending to liquids, the doctrine which he had before advanced respecting elastic fluids; on the ‘Propagation of Heat in various Substances;’ and an ‘Experimental Inquiry concerning the Source of Heat Excited by Friction.’

An account of this last essay must be given here, because from it Count Rumford derives his chief scientific reputation.

Whilst directing the military affairs of the Duke of Bavaria he had to organise the field artillery, and he found no cannon foundry in Bavaria. The arsenal at Munich was filled with cannon, but by far the greater part of them were perfectly useless, being too heavy to be moved. There was a very good foundry at Mannheim, the capital of the Elector’s dominions on the Rhine, but the distance between Munich and Mannheim is so great that it would have cost more to have sent the Bavarian guns to Mannheim to be refounded and to have brought them back than was required to defray the expense of establishing a new manufactory for the construction of artillery in Bavaria.

A foundry was accordingly established at Munich, and neither pains nor expense were spared to make it as perfect as possible. A most excellent machine was erected for boring cannon, with workshops adjoining to it for the construction of gun-carriages and ammunition waggons.

Whilst engaged in superintending the boring of the cannon he was struck by the heat produced in a brass gun and with the still more intense heat of the metallic chips separated by the borer.

He says: ‘The more I meditated on these phenomena the more they appeared to me to be curious and interesting. A thorough investigation of them seemed even to bid fair to give a further insight into the hidden nature of heat, and to enable us to form some reasonable conjectures respecting the existence or non-existence of an igneous fluid.

‘Whence comes the heat actually produced?

‘Does it come from the metallic chips? If so, their capacity for heat must be changed; but by repeated experiments I found that no change of capacity was caused by the boring. Determination of the actual heat produced and of the amount of chips showed that there was no relation between them. That the heat did not come from the gun itself was shown by the absence of every sign of exhaustion in the metal, notwithstanding the large quantities of heat given off.

‘Did the heat come from the air? Exclusion of the air did not in the smallest degree diminish the heat.

‘It would be difficult,’ he says, ‘to describe the surprise and astonishment expressed in the countenances of the bystanders on seeing a large quantity of cold water heated and actually made to boil without any fire.

‘Though there was, in fact, nothing that could justly be considered as surprising in this event, yet I acknowledge fairly that it afforded me a degree of childish pleasure which, were I ambitious of the reputation of a grave philosopher, I ought most certainly rather to hide than to discover.’

The amount of heat given out in a continual stream by his borer he estimated at that of nine wax candles each of three-quarters of an inch in diameter. This was produced by the work of two horses. ‘But,’ he adds, ‘no circumstances can be imagined in which this method of procuring heat would not be disadvantageous; for more heat may be obtained by using the fodder necessary for the support of a horse as fuel.’

He concludes thus:

‘Anything which any insulated body or system of bodies can continue to furnish without limitation cannot possibly be a material substance, and it appears to me to be extremely difficult, if not quite impossible, to form any distinct idea of anything capable of being excited and communicated in these experiments except it be MOTION.

‘I am far from pretending to know how that particular kind of motion which has been supposed to constitute heat is excited, continued, and propagated. Nobody surely in his sober senses has ever pretended to understand the mechanism of gravitation, and yet what sublime discovery was our immortal Newton enabled to make merely by the investigation of the laws of its action!’

The account of these experiments was read to the Royal Society, January 25, 1798.

Some interesting facts regarding this paper are to be found in the correspondence of Sir C. Blagden with Sir J. Banks.

Dear Sir Joseph,—Count Rumford’s paper on Friction, together with your letter, were safely delivered to me by Lord Palmerston. The paper is by no means incorrect in itself, nor has the copyist made any remarkable blunders, and it is valuable from the large scale on which the experiments were tried, and the quantity of heat produced in consequence. As the result of the experiments was such as the Count himself foresaw, and as every other philosopher would have expected, they do not furnish any new argument in favour of the opinion he has adopted that heat is motion, though perhaps they add force to the old ones. There is, however, an experiment of some consequence if it can be depended upon; namely, that which seemed to show that the shavings cut by the borer out of the cannon had the same capacity for heat as the metal on which the borer had not acted; but I do not feel much confidence in experiments of this nature. You will recollect that one opinion pretty much adopted on this subject is that the heat produced in boring a cannon depends on the compression of the metal of the cannon by the borer, in consequence of which it gives out heat; on the principle that the same body has a less capacity for heat when it is in a denser than when it is in a rarer state. I wish the Count had ascertained whether the metal shavings he tried had really a greater specific gravity than that of the chips of metal he had sawed off.

Whilst in England Rumford at this time strove to advance scientific knowledge not only by the publication of his own discoveries, but also by his benefactions for the promotion of discovery by others, and by the further practical application of some of the results which he had obtained.

On July 12, 1796, he wrote to the Honourable John Adams, President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences at Boston, to offer 5,000 dollars in the 3 per cent. stocks, ‘to the end that the interest may be spent every second year on a silver and gold medal as a premium to the author of the most important discovery or useful improvement on heat or on light; the preference always being given to such discoveries as shall, in the opinion of the Academy, tend most to promote the good of mankind.’

In 1829 the fund accumulated to 20,000 dollars, and in 1870 to 37,000 dollars. The Academy applied to the Legislature to use the money for the purchase of books and apparatus, and to pay for experiments, lectures, and treatises, and this was decided in 1831. During the first fifty years only one award of the medals was made. This was to Dr. Hare, of Philadelphia, 1839. They have been since given to Mr. Ericsson, Professor Treadwell, Mr. Alvan Clark, and Mr. Corliss.

On the same day in 1796 Count Rumford wrote to Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, offering 1,000l. stock on the same conditions to the Royal Society of London.

Sir Joseph Banks was requested by the council to return their sincere thanks to Count Rumford, and at the same time to inquire ‘how far improvements or discoveries in optics and chemistry might come under the Count’s views.’

Count Rumford wrote to Sir Joseph Banks, from Munich, April 20, 1797:

I think the premium should be limited to new discoveries tending to improve the theories of fire, of heat, of light, and of colours, and to new inventions and contrivances by which the generation and preservation and management of heat and of light may be facilitated. In as far, therefore, as chemical discoveries or improvements in optics answer any of these conditions they may, I think, fairly be considered as being within the limits assigned to the operation of the premium. The objects which I had more particularly in view to encourage, are such practical improvements in the generation and management of heat and light as tend directly and powerfully to increase the enjoyments and comforts of life, especially in the lower and more numerous classes of society.

The first award of the Rumford medal was made, in November 1802, to Count Rumford himself for his own discoveries on heat and light. In 1870 the award was made for the twenty-sixth time. Eleven foreigners have received the honour, and thus added to the reputation of the prize. The greatest English discoverer on the subject of light is not on the list, but when sending the medal to M. Fresnel (who was on his death-bed) in 1827, Young, as foreign secretary of the Royal Society, wrote to him: ‘I also should claim some right to participate in the compliment which is tacitly paid to myself in common with you by this adjudication, but, considering that more than a quarter of a century is passed since my principal experiments were made, I can only feel it a sort of anticipation of posthumous fame, which I have never particularly coveted.’

In order further to apply some of his scientific researches to practice in the spring of 1796, on the invitation of his friend Mr. Secretary Pelham, Rumford went to Dublin.

In the house of the Dublin Society he fitted up a laundry and a model kitchen for private families, and also a cottage fire-place, and a model lime-kiln in the courtyard of the house of the Society; also in the hall in which the meetings of the Royal Irish Academy are held he fitted up two chimney fire-places. He contrived a fire-place for heating one of the principal churches in Dublin, and he promised to give a plan for heating the superb new building destined for the meeting of the Irish House of Commons. In the Linen Hall at Dublin he fitted up an oblong square boiler as a model for bleachers.

He was made a member of the Royal Irish Academy and of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, and he received after he left the country the public thanks of the Grand Jury of the County of Dublin, and of the Lord Mayor of the city, as well as of the Lord Lieutenant as the head of the Government.

Upon his return to London he superintended some improvements at the Foundling Hospital for his friend Mr. Bernard, who was treasurer there. Roasters and boilers were put up, but he was obliged to return to Munich before the kitchens were entirely finished.

His daughter left America to join her father in England in January 1796. By her Colonel Baldwin wrote from Woburn, January 26, 1796:

In answer to your inquiry, I can say that it is my opinion that you can freely return to America, either with or without official leave from the State, as you may choose; and that you would realise a hearty welcome from all your old friends and citizens in general. I can say, for one, that there is not a person on earth that I should rejoice so much to see.

Rumford answered:

London, March 26, 1796.

I return you many thanks for your friendly letter, which I received by my daughter, and I beg you would accept my warmest acknowledgments for all the kindness you have shown to my daughter for the many years she has been known to you.

Her gratitude to you is without bounds, and she says nothing on earth will ever make her forget your goodness to her. I do not despair of being able, at some future period, to express to you in person, by word of mouth, the sense I entertain of your kindness to my dear child. You will not expect that I should attempt to describe the pleasure I felt at seeing my dear girl after an absence of twenty years!

Some years afterwards the daughter gave a vivid picture of her father at this time.

Count Rumford, my father, having passed several preceding years at Munich, in Bavaria, had come to England to have published some of his essays. He took the opportunity to send for me, my mother being dead, and I requiring protection. Many were the scenes he had passed through after leaving me as an infant, and erroneous were the ideas I had formed of him, particularly of his appearance; we having had only a small profile of him in shade, giving ever an imperfect idea of the person. Indeed, so different from what I had thought were his looks, that I could hardly fancy him the person I sought after, and would willingly have run from him, and ended in a violent fit of crying, which he did not consider as a compliment, asking me afterwards what I meant by it. The playfulness of his character (at times) secured love to my father. Witness his laughter, quite from the heart, nothing made up about it. The expression of his mouth, ornamented with the most finished pearls, was sweetness itself. But to see him accidentally, he did not strike one as handsome, or very agreeable, though not exactly to the contrary. At the time I met him, having been ill, he was very thin and pale—again a reason of my disappointment. My opinion of him was naturally romantic, perhaps, as young people’s often are. I had heard him spoken of as an officer. I had attached to this an idea of the warrior, with the martial look, possibly the sword, if not the gun, by his side. His profile being in black, made me suppose him dark in complexion, possibly sunburnt; in short, in stature, size, and looks the perfect warrior. Yet my mother often spoke of him as carroty, his hair being red; but later not so, a very pretty colour. My father pretended I looked better than he expected to find me. It is true he had had a most unfavourable likeness of me in a small miniature.

Though it was a trying scene to meet, yet it was nothing to finding out each other’s disposition in the end, and my father began with being much alarmed about me. He himself resided in a large hotel in Pall Mall, but could not have me with him, putting me to board not far off, at a Mrs. Lackington’s. He had brought his valet, Aichner, with him, and for me a maid, by the name of Anymeetle, both Germans. I was to be presented to Lord and Lady Palmerston, Sir Charles Blagden, Sir William Pepperell and family (Americans), and other of his friends.

My father was often at the Royal Society, and intimate with its president, Sir Joseph Banks. I would be invited to the dinners Sir Joseph gave to the select ones of his royal learned Society. Through the kindness and civility of Lady and Miss Banks, his wife and sister, I several times found myself one of their party. Lady Banks was so kind, and, most likely out of civility to my father, she would allow me to be with her for days together, taking me about with her, letting me see things—in short, trying to amuse me. I recollect she took me to a Lord Mayor’s ball, where I saw the princes and royal family for the first time. As may be supposed, the select dinners of the Royal Society were highly interesting, and where, I think, ladies were seldom or never admitted. I was allowed to accompany Lady and Miss Banks as a mere nobody; but this did not prevent my making observations which never have been and never will be forgotten. The idea of very learned people suggests that of pedantry. At these dinners there was nothing of the kind, differing only from other refined societies when remarks were made to convey perhaps new ideas, discoveries, or highly entertaining instruction, sometimes there being no such talk at all.

The daughter wrote to Mrs. Baldwin in America, June 13, 1796:

We should have been gone long before this time to Germany if some business had not called my father to Ireland.

I enjoy very good health, and am very happy. I should think it strange if I were not to be. I am indulged in everything I wish, and I am under the protection of a parent that I have not only reason to love, but to be proud of.

The state of Europe at this time caused Rumford to return to Munich. At the close of the campaign of 1794 between France and the German Empire, when Prussia made peace with France, Bavaria desired to be neutral. It was not until the spring of 1796 that the Republicans under Moreau, who had crossed the Rhine at Strasburg, threatened Munich. Rumford was recalled. The Elector took refuge in Saxony eight days after Rumford arrived. He had appointed Rumford head of a council of regency and commander of the Bavarian troops. The Austrians, defeated by the French near Augsburg in August, retreated on Munich. They found Count Rumford determined to oppose them. On the arrival of the French troops he refused to admit them also, and by his firmness and wisdom the neutrality of Munich was preserved. The inhabitants of the town fully recognised that they owed the preservation of their city to Count Rumford alone.

The defeat of Jourdan on the Lower Rhine obliged Moreau to retreat. The Bavarian territory was evacuated, and the Elector returned to Munich. He made Rumford head of the General Police of Bavaria, and about 200l. of the pension which had been granted to him was settled on his daughter for her life. She was also received at Court as a Countess of the Empire.

In December 1797 Rumford wrote to his friend Baldwin from Munich:

My daughter never ceases her solicitations to engage me to pay a visit to my friends in America, and her wishes are so powerfully seconded by my own feelings and longing desires to breathe once more my native air, that I have come to the resolution to make the journey as soon as the restoration of peace and the arrangement of my concerns in this country will permit it. If the public affairs of Europe and of America take the turn I expect, and if no unforeseen event should happen to prevent my carrying my schemes into execution, I think you will see us in America in fifteen or sixteen months from this time.

Meanwhile his daughter amused herself at Munich.

The Elector was old and had married a young wife, so that there was gaiety at Court during this winter, and the attentions of one of the aides-de-camp of her father made rides, and dinners, and balls pleasant to the Count’s daughter; but she says ‘all her fine castles were demolished by one blow from her father, and Count Taxis was ordered to join his regiment in the country.’ Ill health followed, and change of air and scene was advised. ‘My father appeared to try how agreeable he could make himself, as if wishing to wear off by it some of the disagreeable impressions of his late conduct in drawing so many tears from my poor eyes.... When quiet and happy himself he was, like others, agreeable; but when perplexed with cares and business, or much occupied, there was no living with him.’

In the autumn of 1798, partly on account of his health, he determined to return to England with his daughter. The Elector of Bavaria, to show his esteem for Rumford, appointed him Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of St. James.

On September 14, 1798, Lord Grenville sent a despatch to the Hon. Arthur Paget at Munich, saying, ‘It is, I apprehend, a thing if not wholly unprecedented, at least extremely unusual, to appoint a subject of the country to reside at the Court of his natural sovereign in the character of minister from a foreign prince. I am to direct you in the last resort to state in distinct terms that his Majesty will by no means consent to receive Count Rumford in the character which has been assigned to him. You will observe that the circumstance of Count Rumford having heretofore filled a confidential situation (that of Under-Secretary of State in the American Department) under his Majesty’s Government, makes the appointment in his person peculiarly improper and objectionable.’

On Count Rumford’s arrival on September 19 he wrote to Lord Grenville to say that, notwithstanding the information and the intimation which had been communicated to him by Mr. Canning, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, he considered it his duty formally to notify that, having been appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, he had come to England in consequence of that appointment, and was charged with a letter to the King, which he ought to endeavour to obtain permission to deliver with his own hands. He therefore asked an audience or personal interview with the minister, to state the objects of his mission, and to receive such information as would enable him to give a clear, authentic, and satisfactory account to the sovereign who had entrusted him with the management of his affairs.

The day but one after, Lord Grenville shortly answers that ‘he conceives it will be more agreeable to Count Rumford that the substance of the representation with which Mr. Paget was charged should be transmitted by Count Rumford to the Elector rather than through any other channel.’

The same day a despatch to this effect was written to the Hon. Arthur Paget at Munich.

No other notice was taken of Count Rumford’s appointment. He did not return to Munich, and the following year his master, the Elector Charles Theodore, died.

The thoughts of Rumford, when rejected as minister of Bavaria, were directed to his native land. He thus wrote to his friend Baldwin in America:

London, September 28, 1798.

I arrived in this city last week from Germany, and I expect to be able to remain here several months. I have, indeed, some hopes of being able to pay you a visit in America in the spring. But these hopes, though apparently well founded, may easily be disappointed, for there are several events, none of which are very improbable, that would render it impossible for me to be absent from Europe next year. It is, however, my fixed intention to pay a visit to my friends in America as soon as ever it shall be in my power, which most probably will be in the course of a year or two. I have even a scheme of forming for myself a little quiet retreat in that country, to which I can retire at some future period and spend the evening of my life. Perhaps you may be so good as to assist me in carrying this plan into execution. As I am not wealthy, and prefer comfort to splendour, I shall not want anything magnificent. From forty to one hundred acres of good land, with wood and water belonging to it, if possible in a retired situation, from one to four miles from Cambridge, with or without a neat, comfortable house upon it, would satisfy all my wishes.

Among his friends in England was the Honourable Rufus King, the American minister.

Mr. King wrote to Colonel Pickering, the Secretary of State in America:

London, December 8, 1798.

Count Rumford, late Sir Benjamin Thompson, whose name and history are probably known to you, and whose talents and services have procured the most beneficial establishments and reforms in Bavaria, was lately named by the Elector to be his minister at this Court. On his arrival he has been informed that, being a British subject, it was contrary to usage to receive him, and that therefore he could not be acknowledged. The intrigues and opposition against which he had for some years made head in Bavaria probably made him desire the mission to England. The refusal he has here met with has decided him to return and settle himself in America. He proposes to establish himself at or near Cambridge, to live there in the character of a German count, to renounce all political expectations, and devote himself to literary pursuits. His connexions in this country are strictly literary, and his knowledge, particularly in the military department, may be of great use to us. The Count is well acquainted with and has had much experience in the establishment of cannon foundries; that which he established in Bavaria is spoken of in very high terms, as well as certain improvements that he has introduced in the mounting of flying artillery.

He possesses an extensive military library, and assures me that he wishes nothing more than to be useful to our country. I make this communication by his desire, and my wish is that he may be well received, as I am persuaded that his principles are good, and his talents and information uncommonly extensive. It is possible that attempts may be made to misrepresent his political opinions; from the inquiry that I have made on this head, I am convinced that his political sentiments are correct.

Be good enough to communicate this letter to the President.

Count Rumford soon after wrote to Mr. King:

I send you herewith a small pamphlet,[5] which will explain to you the causes which have rendered it impossible for me to go to America this spring, as I had intended. I have not, however, given over all ideas of visiting that country at some future period; very far from it, I really hope and expect to be able to go there next spring, and will most certainly do so, if it should be possible, provided you should continue to advise it, and to encourage me with the hope of a kind reception.

The model of a field-piece[6] on a new, and I believe on an improved construction, which I have destined as a present to the United States, I shall pack up and send to you, in order to its being shipped for America as soon as I shall get it from his Royal Highness the Duke of York, who has desired to have a copy of it.

You will recollect that in a conversation we had at your house on the great importance to the United States of the speedy establishment of a military school or academy, I took the liberty to say that to assist in the establishment of so useful an institution I should be happy to be permitted to make a present to the academy of my collection of military books, plans, drawings, and models. I now repeat this offer, and with a request to you that you would make it known to the Executive Government of the United States, and that you would let me know as soon as may be convenient whether this offer will be accepted.

Another letter written the following day to his friend Colonel Baldwin also gives the reason why Rumford stayed in England.

March 14, 1799.

I will not attempt to describe the painful disappointment I feel at being obliged to give up all hopes of seeing you and the rest of my dear friends in America this year. A small pamphlet which you will receive with this letter will acquaint you with the reasons which have induced me to postpone my intended voyage; and you will, I am confident, agree with me in opinion that I have done right in sacrificing the pleasure that voyage would have afforded me to the more important objects to which my attention has been called. I beg you would be so kind as to give my dear mother the earliest notice of this change in my plans, and that you would at the same time endeavour to give her just ideas of the very great importance of the undertaking in which I have been called upon to give my assistance, and show her how impossible it was for me to refuse that assistance, especially as it was asked in a manner so honourable to myself. And as the success of the undertaking will be productive of so much good, and will place me in so distinguished a situation in the eyes of the world and of posterity, you will, I am persuaded, find little difficulty in persuading her that I have done perfectly right, and in reconciling her to the disappointment she will naturally feel at not seeing me arrive in America at the time appointed.

The undertaking was the Royal Institution, and the pamphlet was the ‘Proposals’ for its foundation.

On September 8 Mr. King again wrote to Count Rumford:

London, September 8, 1799.

I have more than once expressed to you a wish that you might find leisure, as well as inclination, to revisit your native country, where I have been persuaded you would meet with a friendly and cordial reception, and by your presence and advice might be of great advantage to our public institutions, the establishment of which, upon approved principles, is an object of the highest consequence. I am happy that I have it in my power to assure you that I have not been mistaken in these sentiments, and it affords me peculiar satisfaction to execute the order that I have lately received from my Government to invite you in its name to return and reside among us, and to propose to you to enter into the American service.[7]

Count Rumford answered:

Brompton, September 12, 1799.

I am deeply sensible of the honour that has been conferred upon me by the Government of the United States, by the kind invitation they have sent me to come and reside in my native country, and also by the other distinguished and most flattering proofs of their confidence and esteem with which that invitation has been accompanied.

Nothing could have afforded me so much satisfaction as to have had it in my power to have given to my liberal and generous countrymen such proof of my sentiments as would in the most public and ostensible manner have evinced, not only my gratitude for the kind attentions I have received from them, but also the ardent desire I feel to assist in promoting the prosperity of my native country.

His affection for his mother, his daughter, and his friend is seen in the following letter to Colonel Baldwin, which he wrote the day before his daughter sailed for America:

Brompton, near London, August 24, 1799.

I cannot permit my daughter to return to America without charging her with a few lines for my oldest friend and schoolfellow, the companion of my earliest youth. In straining my recollection as much as possible, in order to look back into that dark cloud that covers the early period of my life, I can remember no person distinctly, longer than yourself, except it be my mother. I must therefore consider you as one of my oldest acquaintances, and I have never ceased to regard you and to love you as one of my best friends. A few months ago I flattered myself with the hope of soon seeing you, but events happened to frustrate those hopes. But though my voyage to America is postponed, it is by no means abandoned. On the contrary, I really think it very likely that I shall pay you a visit next spring.

My daughter will tell you what I am doing in this country, and will acquaint you with my plans and wishes respecting her establishment in America. If you can further the execution of my schemes, I have no doubt but you will do it. There is nothing I have so much at heart as to make my dear mother perfectly comfortable and happy during the remainder of her life.

And a year later he wrote to Colonel Baldwin:

Royal Institution, June 9, 1800.

I must begin my letter with a subject which is ever uppermost in my mind. My daughter and my dear mother will probably be in your neighbourhood when this letter reaches you. I most earnestly recommend them both to your kind attentions. I have one wish, and one only, respecting them, which is, that they may be as happy as possible. As I am at so great a distance from them, I am but ill qualified to judge of their wants and their wishes. Pray assist them in every way in which your friendly assistance can be of use to them, or make them comfortable and contented.

Perhaps my daughter may marry (which she has my leave to do whenever she pleases, and with whom she pleases).[8] This may greatly alter her relative situation with me and with my mother. She may perhaps wish at some future period to make me another visit in Europe, and even in this scheme I shall not oppose her inclinations, if her heart should be set on the gratification of them. I do not mean to be an indulgent father in theory only.

Tell me how I must act to make two persons who are very dear to me as happy as possible.

[CHAPTER II.]
LIFE OF RUMFORD AFTER THE FOUNDATION OF THE INSTITUTION.
1799 to 1814.

The history of the life of Count Rumford in 1799, 1800, 1801 to May 1802 is chiefly the history of the Royal Institution. The foundation of it forms an episode which must be separated from the rest of his career. But some of the letters and events of these years which are more closely related to his future life will be recorded here.

Before he began the Institution he had almost determined to go to America, and before the building was finished he wrote to his daughter regarding the time ‘when I shall be at liberty,’ and soon after he spoke of going to Munich, but before his plans for the Institution were carried out he went to Paris, where new attractions put an end to all he intended to do in America and in England, and he never revisited his native or his adopted country.

On June 9, 1800, Sir C. Blagden wrote to Rumford’s daughter in America:

It will give me great pleasure to see you again either here or in America. Do not depend upon the Count’s going to visit you there. It is indeed possible that the fancy may suddenly strike him, and then he will set off in an instant, almost without giving notice. But his favourite child, the Institution, cannot yet walk alone, and, if he quits it at the time he talks of, will be a helpless cripple, even if it should continue to exist at all. I still see with regret his time and powers wasted on an object so inferior, in my opinion, to those which presented themselves to him in America. But he views the thing in a different light, and I suspect will be led on to stay here one year after another, till you are worn out with expecting him, and the opportunity of distinguishing himself in a rising country will be past.

Count Rumford thus wrote to his daughter:

Royal Institution, London, March 2, 1801.

My dear Child,—I am still established at the Institution. I have been exceedingly busy, but desire to be thankful that all is now nearly completed, when I shall be at liberty. We have found a nice able man for this place as lecturer—Humphry Davy. Lectures are given, frequented by crowds of the first people. Lady Palmerston and her two daughters, Frances and Elizabeth, are pretty constant attendants.

They would not receive me as minister here, but seem disposed now to make it up to me by the respect they show the Institution—originally and chiefly my work. Bernard says they are crazy about it. It was certainly gratifying to me to see the honourable list of lords, dukes, &c., as fifty-guinea subscribers. It is a very extensive establishment, and will cost a great deal of money; but I hope it will be an equal advantage to the world, as the expense and labour of forming it have been great. To strive for good things I view as a laudable ambition, as I hope you do, my dear Sally. But I hope, above all, to hear of your being well and happy, not doubting the rest.

I hope to be undisturbed by visitors this morning, or workmen, from my being thought to be at Harrogate, and to be allowed quietly to fill this sheet. You can form no idea of the bustle in which I live since I have taken up my residence in this place. In short, the Royal Institution is not only the fashion but the rage. I am very busy indeed in striving to turn the disposition of the moment to a good account for the permanent benefit of society.

I have the unspeakable satisfaction to find that my labours have not been in vain. In this moment of scarcity and general alarm the measures I have recommended in my writings for relieving the distresses of the poor are very generally adopted, and public kitchens have been erected in all the great towns in England and Scotland. Upwards of sixty thousand persons are fed daily from the different public kitchens in London.

The plan has lately been adopted in France, and a very large public kitchen for feeding the poor was opened in Paris three weeks since. A gentleman present tells me that the founders of the institution did me the honour to put my name at the head of the tickets given to the poor authorising them to receive soup at the public kitchens. At Geneva they have done still more to show me respect. They have marked their tickets with a stamp on which my portrait and my name are engraved.

I am not vain, my dear Sally, but it is utterly impossible not to feel deeply affected at these distinguished marks of honour conferred on me by nations at war with Great Britain, and in countries where I have never been, or know little of the inhabitants. But my greatest delight arises from the silent contemplation of having succeeded in schemes and labours for the benefit of mankind.

Sir C. Blagden wrote to Rumford’s daughter, September 10, 1801:

Your father is indeed going to Munich, and talks of setting out in a fortnight. I had at one time almost settled to go with him, but he then proposed to stay there all this winter and next summer. Two or three weeks ago he changed his plan, and determined to make this only a preparatory visit, and to return hither within three months. For my own part I sincerely wish that he had found it expedient to make a voyage to America instead of this journey on the Continent. I would then certainly have accompanied him across the Atlantic, notwithstanding the unsettled state of affairs here. He every day talks more and more coolly about going to America, and though I really think that he means to make you a visit there some time or other, yet it does not seem as if he promised himself much satisfaction besides.

As to his health, it is nearly the same as usual, except that he is rather thinner, having lived long upon a very spare diet. The constant agitation of his mind, and the irritable constitution with which it is connected, will necessarily prevent him from enjoying a regular state of good health.

Again, in September, writing to his daughter, Rumford says that the new Elector has invited him to return with assurances of his warm friendship, and ‘that though many salaries and pensions have been suspended through the war, his shall be paid.’ He says he is going to Munich, ‘but that if the Elector will excuse him he does not intend to stay long, the Royal Institution still requiring his oversight.’

He reached Munich by way of Mannheim, and thence wrote to his daughter:

Munich, October 2, 1801.

My dear Sally,—I arrived here late last evening, and early this morning went to pay my respects to the Elector, who received me with all imaginable kindness. He appears to have plenty of business for me in an academy he is about building, but, as things are not yet in readiness to begin, I am excused from remaining; instead of which I return to England, to put an end to the work begun there—that of the Royal Institution. I owe so much to the Elector, it is my duty to do all in my power to give him satisfaction. Besides, he says I shall be president of the academy when done.

In another letter he speaks of the kindness he met with in Bavaria.

He left Munich on October 13, and again wrote to his daughter on his arrival in Paris on the 25th. His daughter says this was her father’s first visit to Paris. The reception he met with was ‘simply enchantment.’ His inventions were in common use; his name was familiar to everyone. He made a multitude of acquaintances; parties were made for him every day; and he particularly liked one lady. Two letters written to Sir Joseph Banks from Paris in 1801 are of great interest.

Hôtel de Caraman, Paris, November 11.

My dear Sir Joseph,—I arrived here from Munich about a fortnight ago, and I purpose staying here three weeks longer. My reception has been very flattering, and I find many interesting objects of curiosity that engage my attention. I have already made the personal acquaintance of most of the men of eminence in science, and I have attended several of the meetings of the National Institute. At the last meeting of the mathematical and physical class the First Consul came in, and, fortunately for the complete gratification of my curiosity, he happened to come and seat himself very near me. One person only (Lagrange) was between us. He stayed about an hour—till the meeting was over. Volta read a memoir on Galvanism and explained his theory of the action of the voltaic pile or battery. His opinion is that all the appearances that are called galvanic are owing to the action of an electric fluid, and he says that the simple tact of two metals—silver and zinc, for instance—is sufficient to set the electric fluid in motion; and if the metals are insulated, one of them will become electrified positively and the other negatively. This assertion was proved by an experiment which was made before the assembly, and this fact is the foundation on which his explanation of the phenomena of the galvanic pile is established. After Volta had finished his memoir the First Consul demanded leave from the President to speak, which, being granted, he proposed to the meeting to reward M. Volta with a gold medal, and to appoint a committee to confer with M. Volta on the subject of his experiments and investigations respecting galvanism, and to make such new experiments as may bid fair to lead to further discoveries. He delivered his sentiments with great perspicuity and displayed a degree of eloquence which surprised me. He is certainly a very extraordinary man and is possessed of uncommon abilities. The expression of his countenance is strong, and it is easy to perceive by his looks that he can pronounce the magic words ‘je le veux’ with due energy. I was presented to him by the Bavarian minister at his last public audience, and was received by him with marked attention. He gave me to understand that he knew me by reputation very well, and intimated that the French nation had adopted several of the improvements I had recommended. A few minutes after I came home from the audience I received a note from him, inviting me to come and dine with him that day. The foreign ministers dined with him, but no other stranger except myself was invited; consequently my being invited was considered as a marked distinction. It was the next day that I saw him again at the National Institute.

I have had opportunities of making the acquaintance of several of the most distinguished characters now in power in this country. I am very intimate with Chaptal, the Minister of the Interior, and frequently see Talleyrand, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I have dined with both of them, and visit them often. Laplace and Bertholet are very civil and attentive to me, and have each of them given me a dinner, where I met most of the men of science of the first distinction in Paris. Fourcroy has also given me a dinner. In short, I am treated with the utmost civility, and I spend my time very agreeably and very usefully. I hope to see you in London about the 6th or 8th of December.

Ever yours most faithfully,
Rumford.

He again wrote:

November 22, 1801.

My dear Sir Joseph,—I do wrong perhaps, but I cannot help telling you that your name is at the head of the list of those ten persons whom the Class of Mathematics and Physics have resolved to present to the National Institute at their next general meeting, in order to their being elected foreign members of the Institute. You were proposed to the class by the Section of Botany. Your name is followed by those of Maskelyne, Cavendish, Herschel, Priestly, Pallas, Volta, and three others. I was present when the ballot of the class was taken, and had the satisfaction to see that all the votes agreed in placing your name at the head of the list. I was politely told that my name would have been near that of my friend, had it not been that the second class of the Institute had claimed me as belonging to them and had placed me on their list. The three first names on that list are, I am told, Mr. Jefferson, President of the United States, Count Rumford, and Major Rennell; the others I did not learn.

I was proposed to the class by the Section of Political Economy. The classes propose to the Institute, and the Institute elects at a general meeting. The number of foreign members is limited to twenty-four. As the election will not take place for some weeks to come, I beg you would make the most prudent use of the information I have given you. I shall not mention the subject to anybody but yourself.

I hope to see you in London in about three weeks from this time.

My health is much improved, and is still improving every day. My stay in Paris has afforded me much amusement, but I begin to be impatient to see my friends in England. I hope everything is going on well at the Royal Institution.

I am, my dear Sir Joseph, with unalterable esteem and attachment, yours most faithfully,

Rumford.

In another letter to his daughter, written January 15, 1802, he says that he returned to Brompton on December 20, and that he was three months on the Continent and seven weeks of the time in Paris. He spoke of his intention to enjoy again the delights of the French capital on his way, in the course of the summer, to Munich and to get excused from any longer residence at Munich. The Elector continued friendly to him, and had lately written to him a very gracious letter, in which he expresses his pleasure at the cordiality extended towards Rumford in France, and advises him to cultivate an acquaintance with a certain lady there, who, among other attractions, was said to have great wealth. When he made this second visit to Paris, the Count accepted an invitation which he had received to stay with the Bavarian ambassador.

Before he left England again, May 9, 1802, he published the third volume of his essays.