Life of Count Rumford. 363 



regards to your family and inquiring friends. Your compliance 

 with my request in this letter will be a gre?" favor that will be 

 acknowledged with gratitude by 



" Your obliged friend, 



"RUTH PIERCE. 

 " HON. LOAMMI BALDWIN, ESQ^, Woburn." 



Pictet says in reference to the daughter's return to 

 America at this time : " The contrast between the 

 pleasant and quiet ways of her own country and the 

 hubbub of the court of Bavaria, where her father re- 

 sided, was too severe for her to reconcile and con- 

 form herself to it. Her health suffered ; she could 

 breathe only the air of America, and she returned thither. 

 She kept up with her father a constant and most inter- 

 esting correspondence, to judge of it by the fragments 

 which he has allowed me to read." 



Sarah took with her the following pleasant letter to 

 Colonel Baldwin: 



"BROMPTON, near London, 24th Aug., 1799. 



" MY DEAR FRIEND, I cannot permit my Daughter to 

 return to America without charging her with a few lines for 

 my oldest friend and school-fellow, the companion of my earliest 

 youth. In straining my recollection as much as possible, in 

 order to look back into that dark cloud that covers the early 

 period of life, I can remember no person distinctly longer than 

 yourself, except it be my mother. I must therefore consider 

 you as one of my oldest acquaintances, and I have never ceased 

 to regard you and to love you as one of my best friends. A 

 few months ago I flattered myself with the hope of soon seeing 

 you, but events happened to frustrate those hopes. But though 

 my voyage to America is postponed, it is by no means abandoned. 

 On the contrary, I really think it very likely that I shall pay 

 you a visit next Spring. 



" My Daughter will explain to you all the various reasons 



