Life and icritings of Count Riimford, ix 



charity, in a short time supported itself b}^ its manufactures, an<I 

 eventually yielded a considerable revenue to the state. All this 

 was accomplished without oppression or hardship exercised on 

 the poor themselves. Care was taken to render their situation 

 comfortable and to excite their industry by judicious rewards. 

 The system in the end became highly acceptable to the subjects of 

 it, and expressions of satisfaction and of gratitude to its authon 

 occasionally broke forth from these unfortunate beings. The au- 

 thor of this reform was sensibly alive to the ackdowledgments of 

 success, which rewarded his philanthropic exertions. He has 

 feelingly described the effect produced on his mind, during a dan- 

 gerons illness by a sound under his window, from a procession of 

 the poor, who were going to church to put op prayers for tlie re- 

 covery of their benefactor. 



The multiplied services which Sir Benjamin Thompson render- 

 ed in Bavaria, of the agricultural, scientific, political, and milita. 

 ry kind, are too numerous for the limits of this memoir. Tliey 

 were munificently recompensed by the Elector Charles Theodore, 

 who successively appointed him his aid-de-camp, chamberlain, 

 member of his council of state, and lieutenant general of his ar- 

 mies. As the statutes of Bavaria did not permit his receiving the 

 honors of knighthood in that country, the Elector procured for 

 him the decoratioas of the two Polish orders, the White eao-le, 

 and St. Stanislaus. Lastly, in the interval between tbe death of 



the Emperor Joseph, and the coronation of Leopold II, the Elec- 

 tor profited by the right given hira by his functions as vicar of the 

 empire, to raise Sir Benjamin to the dignity of a Count of the 



Holy Roman empire. The title of Kumford, assumed by hira on 



b 



m. 



