philosopher had soon need of all his philosophy, and of all his Christianity too, in face of the ungoverned fury of the mob which, to use Wedgwood's words, swept like a hurricane over him and his friends.

The 14th of July 1791-the anniversary of the French Revolution-was celebrated in several towns in England without interruption or any untoward circumstance; that day, however, was long remembered by the inhabitants of Birmingham with feelings akin to horror. It is certain that the popular rising which then took place in that town was in the outset mainly directed against Priestley. The course of events proves this. As it happened, the appetite in the mob for mischief grew by what it fed upon, and many others, his friends and political and religious associates, were involved in the disaster which overtook him. For it would appear that those who, in the first instance, instigated and directed the outrage lost all control over the forces which they invoked, and the rising, which in the beginning was intended to visit Priestley with the vengeance which the Cracow mob inflicted on his prototype Socinus, developed into a wild anarchical riot, confused and purposeless except as gratifying a wanton lust for rapine and destruction. Many contemporary accounts exist of the Birmingham riots of 1791, and although, as might be expected from the temper of the times, some of the narratives are not wholly uncoloured by prejudice and the partisan spirit of political and religious feeling, it is not difficult to put together a true view of an episode which profoundly affected all parties and sent a thrill of apprehension and alarm throughout the country. Political feeling at the period ran high. Europe had recently witnessed the spectacle of a

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revolution which had filled the governing classes of every state with awe and even terror, and the great masses of the people in this and other countries, to whom all political power was denied, were beginning to realise what might be possible to concerted action properly organised and vigorously pressed. Every bureaucracy was in a state of trepidation. The political atmosphere was heavily charged with electricity and no one could foretell where and when the next thunderbolt would descend. Naturally enough the great vested interests in Church and State looked askance at, and were disquieted by, these periodical celebrations of such an event as the destruction of the Bastile and all that it symbolised, with their odes to Liberty, Fraternity and Equality, and their impassioned appeals to Demos, and the rising hopes of a people grown restive and impatient under what they were taught to believe was political thraldom. It required but a small spark to bring about a conflagration, and designing and unscrupulous men saw in the approaching anniversary of the memorable 14th of July an opportunity of which they were determined to take advantage. Priestley had himself, unwittingly, laid the train which brought about the catastrophe.

"Dr Priestley," says Corry, writing in 1804, "from the commencement of his residence at Birmingham, had undoubtedly turned his attention too much from the luminous field of philosophic disquisition to the sterile regions of polemic divinity and the still more thorny paths of polemic politics. His tracts on these subjects amounted to upwards of thirty, and from his celebrity they had a very general circulation. As a philosopher he clearly saw defects in the most perfect of human institutions, and expressed himself with a boldness and freedom which alarmed the neighbouring clergy of the

Established Church, and excited their resentment. The labouring classes in Birmingham certainly looked upon him as a disaffected and dangerous man. Incapable of deep reflection themselves, they abhorred his Unitarian principles as subversive of Christianity, and the idea that the Church was in danger was propagated among them by men of deeper discernment, who wished to render Dr Priestley odious and unpopular. A very considerable number, however, of the more enlightened inhabitants, who were convinced of the Doctor's integrity as a man, sincerity as a preacher, and superlative merit as a philosopher, were his strenuous advocates and admirers. The collision of parties became every day more violent, and the events which were daily transacting in France kept alive the jealousy arising from uncongenial opinions."

A contemporary account states: The vigorous and repeated attempts of the Dissenters to obtain a repeal of the Corporation and Test Laws [repealed in 1828], excited much alarm and apprehension amongst many of the Established clergy, and were most forcibly felt by those residing in Birmingham. The name and writings of Dr Priestley were as much dreaded by his opponents as they were admired by his friends; and as he long resided near this town, and was eminently conspicuous in his endeavours to procure a repeal of these laws, and in the promulgation of Unitarian doctrines, it is not surprising that his sentiments should have been represented to the lower classes of the people as dangerous to the Church and State.

Attacks made upon his principles and motives in different pulpits were answered from the Press, and produced among other things his Familiar Letters Addressed to the Inhabitants of Birmingham, in which his opponents are combated with much force and severity. In the course of his controversial publications Priestley had made a comparison of the progress of free inquiry

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to the action of gunpowder. The conclusion of the passage ran thus:—

"The present silent propagation of truth may even be compared to those causes in Nature which lie dormant for a time, but which in proper circumstances act with the greatest violence. We are, as it were, laying gunpowder, grain by grain, under the old building of error and superstition, which a single spark may hereafter inflame, so as to produce an instantaneous explosion; in consequence of which that edifice, the erection of which has been the work of ages, may be overturned in a moment, and so effectually as that the same foundation can never be built upon again."

This paragraph became to the enemies of the Dissenters a common topic of allusion, and was read in the House of Commons as an unquestionable proof of the dangerous designs of that body with respect to the constitution of this country. Hence the mischievous thinkers found no difficulty in persuading the unthinking actors that the real intentions of the Dissenters were to destroy the churches.

That mischief was being deliberately planned in view of the coming anniversary was certainly known to not a few of those in authority, some of whom from their position were responsible for the order and good government of the town. Some days before the outbreak a number of copies of a seditious hand-bill had been left in a public-house by an unknown person, and this had been copied and circulated throughout the town, causing a general ferment in the minds of the lowest class of the people. Its character was such that the magistrates promptly offered a reward of one hundred guineas for the discovery of the Writer, Printer, Publisher or Distributer of the inflammatory hand-bill. But notwithstanding that the Dissenters themselves

afterwards offered an additional reward of one hundred guineas, and the Government also proclaimed a further reward of one hundred pounds, no clue was ever obtained to the persons concerned in its preparation or distribution. Such, however, was the feeling of apprehension in the minds of those who were about to take part in the proposed celebration that it was determined. to publish the following advertisement in the Birmingham Chronicle :

BIRMINGHAM COMMEMORATION OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

"Several hand-bills having been circulated in the town which can only be intended to create distrust concerning the intention of the meeting, to disturb its harmony and inflame the minds of people, the Gentlemen who proposed it think it necessary to declare their entire disapprobation of all such hand-bills and their ignorance of the authors. Sensible themselves of the advantages of a Free Government, they rejoice in the extension of Liberty to their Neighbours, at the same time avowing, in the most explicit manner, their firm attachment to the Constitution of their own Country, as vested in the Three Estates of the King, Lords and Commons. Surely no Free-born Englishman can refrain from exulting in this addition to the general mass of human happiness. It is the cause of Humanity, it is the cause of the People.

"BIRMINGHAM, July 13, 1791."

We learn from a letter in the same newspaper, written a few days later by Mr William Russell, Priestley's friend, and himself, with his family, a sufferer in the events which followed, that in spite of this disclaimer there was still good grounds for believing that evil was brewing. He says that on the morning of the 14th many rumours of the probability of a riot were brought to the friends of the meeting; and as there was too much reason to think that means had been used to pro