12 Life of Count Rumford. 



too, that he exercised the patience and sympathy of his 

 friends somewhat severely, till the bent of his genius, 

 asserting and proving itself, offered a more favorable 

 interpretation of what had appeared in him as fickle- 

 ness, . inconstancy of purpose, and even a determined 

 unwillingness to apply himself to any routine and re- 

 warding work. 



It may be as well to mention here one of the earliest 

 and most valued and steadfast friends of young Thomp- 

 son, his townsman and neighbor, and confidential inti- 

 mate in boyhood, though his senior, the sharer with 

 him in his early scientific tastes and pursuits, his sup- 

 porter in the severe trouble which attended his opening 

 manhood, and his correspondent and agent while abroad. 

 This was the late Colonel Loammi Baldwin, of Woburn, 

 a very distinguished officer in the early part of the Revo- 

 lutionary War, and afterwards the most eminent engi- 

 neer in our country, whose enterprise in the Middlesex 

 Canal was the great work of its time. He was born 

 January 10, 1744, nine years before Thompson, and 

 died October 20, 1807, nearly seven years before his 

 friend. It is to his interest in young Thompson from 

 his boyhood, which led him to preserve papers of that 

 period, as well as those which related to his mature 

 years, that the biographer is very largely indebted. His 

 only surviving son, George Rumford Baldwin, Esq., 

 also a very eminent civil engineer, has kindly allowed 

 me the free use of these papers of his father. 



The paternal grandfather, his maternal uncle, Joshua 

 Simonds, the step-father, and the maternal grandfather, 

 successively the responsible guardians of the child and 

 youth, had in view, as a matter of course, to educate 

 and train him for their own respectable way of living, 



