Life of Count Riunford. 165 



his private relations or in the most radical and revo- 

 lutionizing of his schemes, with any religious animosi- 

 ties. Besides his frequent avowals of a religious faith, 

 and his devout references to God in connection with 

 his scientific and benevolent pursuits, he often speaks 

 of himself as an avowed Protestant, and as finding no 

 opposition or loss of regard on that score. 



It may be as well to mention here the titular, mili- 

 tary, civil, and academic honors which so rapidly and 

 lavishly were bestowed upon Sir Benjamin while residing 

 in Bavaria. By request of the Elector, the King of 

 Poland, in 1786, conferred on him the Order of Saint 

 Stanislaus, the statutes of Bavaria not then allowing 

 of his receiving the Bavarian orders. In a journey 

 to Prussia, in 1787, he was made a member of the 

 Academy of Berlin. He was also admitted to the 

 Academies of Science at Munich and Mannheim. In 

 1788 the Elector made him Major-General of cavalry 

 and Privy Councillor of State. He was also put 

 at the head of the War Department, with powers and 

 directions from the Elector to carry into effect the 

 schemes which he had been maturing for the reform 

 of the army and the removal of mendicity. In the 

 interval between the death of the Emperor Joseph and 

 the coronation of Leopold II., the Elector profited by 

 the right going with his functions as Vicar of the Em- 

 pire to raise Sir Benjamin, in 1791, to the dignity of a 

 Count of the Holy Roman Empire, with the Order of 

 the White Eagle. That he should have selected as his 

 title marking this distinction the former name of the 

 New England village in which he had first enjoyed the 

 favors of fortune, shows that he was not alienated in 

 heart from his native land, and that he gladly associated 



