Life of Count Rumford. 291 



wife had taken and maintained when he fled the coun- 

 try secured to them, of -course, the property in which 

 he otherwise would have had an interest. At no sub- 

 sequent period could he have interfered in its manage- 

 ment, or disposed of, or advised the disposal of, any 

 part of it, except by the same sufferance from those 

 immediately concerned, who would have winked at his 

 presence in this country. The property of his deceased 

 wife, having come for the most part from her former 

 husband, Colonel Rolfe, would mainly go to her son 

 by him, Paul Rolfe. A portion of the widow's dower, 

 which she had enjoyed as Mrs. Thompson, would 

 legally descend to the Count's daughter by her. But 

 it would seem that while her inheritance of this was in 

 some way impeded, the Count had reason to apprehend 

 that he might be made independently answerable for the 

 charges of his daughter's maintenance and education 

 during the years in which her father had apparently 

 left her to the care of others. The disrepute attached 

 to his own name in Concord till he had won for it 

 eminent distinction, would allow of irregularity and 

 even of injustice in the transactions of administrators 

 and guardians. As to the " man in America " whose 

 name, as the Count wrote to Colonel Baldwin, he 

 "could not pronounce without indignation," it is 

 hardly worth our while to inquire. Yet I think I 

 might name him, though I should be unwilling to 

 justify any charge thus implied against him. It is 

 interesting to note the Count's incidental assertion that 

 he had written to this man " many years ago." The 

 period designated is indefinite, but it must suggest a 

 date of the Count's intercourse by correspondence with 

 some one near his early home previous to any letter 



