Chapter I (2)

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 1,000_l._ 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 200_l._ 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.