1 82 Life of Count Rumford. 



strange country, of a language not his own, himself 

 not yet thirty-seven years of age, who had spent but 

 little more than four years of his residence to such 

 purpose as to be able to bring the whole military and 

 civil powers of the government, at his own dictation, 

 to grapple effectively with the most gigantic of the evils 

 of a demoralized community. No Eastern monarch 

 ever had a vizier to represent his delegated despotism 

 for effecting results that would compare in amount or 

 extent with the beneficence of the measures which found 

 their agent in the Elector's American counsellor. 



On the morning of New Year's Day, then, the offi- 

 cers and non-commissioned officers of the three regi- 

 ments of infantry in garrison were directed to station 

 themselves at appointed posts in the streets, and to wait 

 for further orders. To relieve his bold undertaking 

 of the odium it might have risked if carried through 

 wholly by the military power, Thompson had at the 

 same time assembled at his lodgings the field-officers 

 and all the chief-magistrates of Munich, and begged 

 them to accompany him with their full sympathy and 

 aid, as he proceeded that morning to execute his plan 

 of seizing upon every beggar in the town, that the 

 strong among them might be put to work, the help- 

 less provided for, and the city be thoroughly relieved 

 of its worst nuisance. All whom he thus appealed to 

 heartily consented to attend him and aid him. He 

 himself was paired off with the chief-magistrate, and 

 each field-officer with an inferior magistrate. The 

 moment they had got into the streets a beggar ex- 

 tended his hand and asked alms. Thompson, setting 

 an example which he desired all his companions to 

 imitate, laid his own hand gently upon the shoulder 



