Rumford answered:
London, March 26, 1796.
I return you many thanks for your friendly letter, which I received by my daughter, and I beg you would accept my warmest acknowledgments for all the kindness you have shown to my daughter for the many years she has been known to you.
Her gratitude to you is without bounds, and she says nothing on earth will ever make her forget your goodness to her. I do not despair of being able, at some future period, to express to you in person, by word of mouth, the sense I entertain of your kindness to my dear child. You will not expect that I should attempt to describe the pleasure I felt at seeing my dear girl after an absence of twenty years!
Some years afterwards the daughter gave a vivid picture of her father at this time.
Count Rumford, my father, having passed several preceding years at Munich, in Bavaria, had come to England to have published some of his essays. He took the opportunity to send for me, my mother being dead, and I requiring protection. Many were the scenes he had passed through after leaving me as an infant, and erroneous were the ideas I had formed of him, particularly of his appearance; we having had only a small profile of him in shade, giving ever an imperfect idea of the person. Indeed, so different from what I had thought were his looks, that I could hardly fancy him the person I sought after, and would willingly have run from him, and ended in a violent fit of crying, which he did not consider as a compliment, asking me afterwards what I meant by it. The playfulness of his character (at times) secured love to my father. Witness his laughter, quite from the heart, nothing made up about it. The expression of his mouth, ornamented with the most finished pearls, was sweetness itself. But to see him accidentally, he did not strike one as handsome, or very agreeable, though not exactly to the contrary. At the time I met him, having been ill, he was very thin and pale—again a reason of my disappointment. My opinion of him was naturally romantic, perhaps, as young people’s often are. I had heard him spoken of as an officer. I had attached to this an idea of the warrior, with the martial look, possibly the sword, if not the gun, by his side. His profile being in black, made me suppose him dark in complexion, possibly sunburnt; in short, in stature, size, and looks the perfect warrior. Yet my mother often spoke of him as carroty, his hair being red; but later not so, a very pretty colour. My father pretended I looked better than he expected to find me. It is true he had had a most unfavourable likeness of me in a small miniature.
Though it was a trying scene to meet, yet it was nothing to finding out each other’s disposition in the end, and my father began with being much alarmed about me. He himself resided in a large hotel in Pall Mall, but could not have me with him, putting me to board not far off, at a Mrs. Lackington’s. He had brought his valet, Aichner, with him, and for me a maid, by the name of Anymeetle, both Germans. I was to be presented to Lord and Lady Palmerston, Sir Charles Blagden, Sir William Pepperell and family (Americans), and other of his friends.
My father was often at the Royal Society, and intimate with its president, Sir Joseph Banks. I would be invited to the dinners Sir Joseph gave to the select ones of his royal learned Society. Through the kindness and civility of Lady and Miss Banks, his wife and sister, I several times found myself one of their party. Lady Banks was so kind, and, most likely out of civility to my father, she would allow me to be with her for days together, taking me about with her, letting me see things—in short, trying to amuse me. I recollect she took me to a Lord Mayor’s ball, where I saw the princes and royal family for the first time. As may be supposed, the select dinners of the Royal Society were highly interesting, and where, I think, ladies were seldom or never admitted. I was allowed to accompany Lady and Miss Banks as a mere nobody; but this did not prevent my making observations which never have been and never will be forgotten. The idea of very learned people suggests that of pedantry. At these dinners there was nothing of the kind, differing only from other refined societies when remarks were made to convey perhaps new ideas, discoveries, or highly entertaining instruction, sometimes there being no such talk at all.
The daughter wrote to Mrs. Baldwin in America, June 13, 1796:
We should have been gone long before this time to Germany if some business had not called my father to Ireland.
I enjoy very good health, and am very happy. I should think it strange if I were not to be. I am indulged in everything I wish, and I am under the protection of a parent that I have not only reason to love, but to be proud of.
The state of Europe at this time caused Rumford to return to Munich. At the close of the campaign of 1794 between France and the German Empire, when Prussia made peace with France, Bavaria desired to be neutral. It was not until the spring of 1796 that the Republicans under Moreau, who had crossed the Rhine at Strasburg, threatened Munich. Rumford was recalled. The Elector took refuge in Saxony eight days after Rumford arrived. He had appointed Rumford head of a council of regency and commander of the Bavarian troops. The Austrians, defeated by the French near Augsburg in August, retreated on Munich. They found Count Rumford determined to oppose them. On the arrival of the French troops he refused to admit them also, and by his firmness and wisdom the neutrality of Munich was preserved. The inhabitants of the town fully recognised that they owed the preservation of their city to Count Rumford alone.
The defeat of Jourdan on the Lower Rhine obliged Moreau to retreat. The Bavarian territory was evacuated, and the Elector returned to Munich. He made Rumford head of the General Police of Bavaria, and about 200l. of the pension which had been granted to him was settled on his daughter for her life. She was also received at Court as a Countess of the Empire.
In December 1797 Rumford wrote to his friend Baldwin from Munich: