32 Biographical Memoir of Count Rumford. 



horseback, and in his uniform. At this time the whole conversation of 

 the military turned on the American campaigns. It was natural for 

 them to be desirous of hearing an English officer speak on the sub- 

 ject ; he was therefore introduced to the prince, when some French 

 officers were present, who had served in the opposite army. The 

 manner in which he described what he had seen, the plans he show- 

 ed, and the original ideas he threw out, were a proof that Mr. Thomson 

 was a man of no ordinary acquirements ; and the prince, knowing 

 that he was to pass through Munich, gave him strong recommenda- 

 tions to his uncle, the reigning elector. 



Charles Theodore, who, from being a mere prince of Sulzbacht 

 had become, by the successive extinction of the chief branches of 

 the Palatine house, sovereign of two electorates, was, in many re- 

 spects, worthy of this favor of fortune. He was a man of intellect 

 and education, and displayed a taste for science, and for all that an- 

 nounced greatness of mind : he encouraged the arts in his dominions, 

 built beautiful palaces, and founded the Academy of Manheim. If 

 he did not adopt in his government those maxims of philanthropy 

 and toleration which now prevail in the counsels of princes, it is to be 

 attributed to the epoch in which he received his education, an epoch 

 in which Louis XIV passed in Germany for the model and ideal of 

 a perfect monarch. We have already said, and we shall see still 

 more plainly in tlie sequel, that Mr. Thomson's ideas were much of 

 the same nature. He could not therefore fail to esteem the Elec- 

 tor, nor the Elector him ; and, in fact, after the first interview, he re- 

 ceived the offer of an appointment, and resolved to have no other 

 master. 



He travelled, therefore, rapidly to Vienna, and hastened to return 

 to London, to obtain permission to enter into the service of Ba- 

 varia. This was granted to him, with flattering marks of satisfaction 

 on the part of his government. The king knighted him, and allow- 

 ed the half-pay belonging to his rank, which he retained till the peri- 

 od of his death. 



To the accomplishments and external advantages of which we 

 have spoken, and the circumstance of his being an Englishman, 

 which is always so great a recommendation on the continent, Sir 

 Benjamin Thomson (for it was with this title that he returned to Mu- 

 nich in 1784) added a talent for pleasing, which could hardly have 

 been anticipated in a man that had issued, as it were, from the for- 

 ests of the new world, The elector, Charles Theodore, granted 



