35O Life of Count Rumford. 



Massachusetts, had been commissioned in 1796, with 

 Pinckney and Trumbull to represent American claims 

 for British spoliations on our commerce. For this 

 purpose he was abroad eight years, being the confiden- 

 tial friend of Mr. King, who left him as American 

 Chargt d'affaires in London, on his return home 

 in 1803. The Count's intercourse with these two 

 gentlemen led to the results which are stated with 

 substantial correctness by Pictet. No publication has 

 yet been made of the official papers of the Hon. 

 Rufus King, though his son, the late much-honored 

 President of Columbia College, New York, was 

 pledged to the undertaking. To my application to 

 a grandson of the ambassador, Mr. Charles R. King, 

 of Andalusia, Buck's County, Pennsylvania, I re- 

 ceived a most satisfactory reply, the tenor of which 

 is indicated by the following extract from his letter 

 to me: 



" The search among my grandfather's papers for correspond- 

 ^eftce with Count Rumford has proved more successful than 

 at one time I supposed would be the case. Enclosed with this 

 you will find copies of letters referring to the interesting facts 

 respecting which you desired information, and which I think 

 have never been published. 



"The letter of Rufus King to Colonel Pickering, of the 8th 

 December, 1798, shows clearly the reasons which moved Count 

 Rumford to desire to leave England and to return to this coun- 

 try ; and the suggestion that he should be cordially welcomed 

 here drew from James McHenry, the Secretary at War, an 

 answer of the 3d July, 1799 (which I am sorry to say, I cannot 

 find), containing, a- permitted by President Adams, the offer to 

 the Count of the Superintendence of the Military Academy and 

 of Inspector-General f Artillery. The letters of King and 

 Rumford show clearly the deep regard and friendship they had 



