BENJAMIN THOMPSON, COUNT RUMFORD 17 



show no less pride in their ancestry than the Sons of the Revolu- 

 tion, we can see the situation in fairer perspective, and, although 

 we may disapprove of his decision and regret the loss to America 

 of another Franklin, we must realize that it was fortunate both 

 for Thompson and the world that his peculiar genius found in 

 Europe a field for its development that America could not have af- 

 forded. 



On leaving America he wrote to his father-in-law, the Rev. 

 Walker of Concord: 



"Though I foresee and realize the distress, poverty and wretch- 

 edness that must unavoidably attend my Pilgrimage in unknown 

 lands, destitute of fortune, friends, and acquaintances, yet all 

 these evils appear to me more tolerable than the treatment which 

 I met with from the hands of mine ungrateful countrymen." 



If this really represents Benjamin Thompson's anticipations 

 on going to England, it cannot be said that he displayed his usual 

 foresight, for he rapidly rose to a position of wealth, power and 

 esteem there. The government was suffering severely from lack 

 of information on conditions in America. Sir George Germain, 

 the Colonial Secretary of State, in their first interview recognized 

 the knowledge and ability of this young man of twenty-three, and 

 gave him a place in the Colonial Office, admitting him as a mem- 

 ber of his own household. 



Science was never to Thompson a mental divertisement, but 

 was always intimately associated with his daily duties. Since he 

 was now engaged in improving the military efficiency of the army, 

 he devoted his attention to the study of the action of gunpowder, 

 "to determine the most advantageous situation for the vent in 

 fire-arms, and to measure the velocities of bullets and the recoil 

 under various circumstances. I had hopes, also, of being able to 

 find out the velocity of the inflammation of gunpowder, and to 

 measure its force more accurately than had hitherto been done." 



He persistently attacked by every means in his power the prob- 

 lems of explosives which Nobel, Abel, Berthelot, and Kellner have 

 in recent years more successfully studied, chiefly along the lines 

 indicated by him and, in part, using his apparatus. He laid the 



