After an unpleasant and perilous journey, he reached London, _via_ Hamburg, in September, 1798, but was terribly disappointed on learning that a British subject could not be accepted as an envoy from a Foreign Power. As he did not then wish to return to Bavaria, he purchased a house in Brompton Row. But he had been too much accustomed to great enterprises to be content with a quiet life, and was bound to have some important scheme on hand. Pressing invitations were sent him to return to America, but he preferred residence in London, and devoted himself to the foundation of the Royal Institution, though the countess returned to the States in August, 1799. A letter from Colonel Baldwin to her father shortly after her return contains the following passage:-- In the cask of fruit which your daughter and Mr. Rolfe have sent you, there is half a dozen apples of the growth of my farm, wrapped up in papers, with the name of _Baldwin's apples_ written upon them.... It is (I believe) a spontaneous production of this country; that is, it was not originally engrafted fruit. The history of the remaining period of Rumford's residence in London is the early history of the Royal Institution. For many years Rumford had had at his disposal for his philanthropic projects all the resources of the electorate of Bavaria, and he had done everything on a royal scale. His original plan for the Royal Institution appears to embody to a very great extent the work of the Science and Art Department, the City and Guilds Institute for the Advancement of Technical Education, the National School of Cookery, the London Society for the Extension of University Teaching, and, in addition to all this, to have comprehended a sort of perpetual International Health Exhibition, where every device for domestic purposes, and especially for the improvement of the condition of the poor, could be inspected. How all this was to be carried out with the resources which the count expected to be able to devote to the purpose, does not appear. Foremost among the objects of the institution was placed the management of fire; for its promoter was convinced that more than half the fuel consumed in the country might be saved by proper arrangements.