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and which you, Gentlemen (never the most delicate), have not fcrupled to call falfehood.

I cannot conclude this address without praying you to continue me your good offices. If the first edition merited your disapprobation, I am in hopes this will be found to merit it in a much higher degree. If it fhould be otherwife decreed, if I am doomed to fuffer your applaufes, I truft, that he who is preparing me the chastisement, will give me fortitude to bear it like a man.

I am, Gentlemen,

Yours, &c. &c.

THE AUTHOR.

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OBSERVATIONS

OBSERVATIONS

ON

PRIESTLEY'S EMIGRATION.

WHEN the arrival of Doctor Priestley in the United States was firft announced *, I looked upon his emigration (like the proposed retreat of Cowley to his imaginary Paradife, the Summer Iflands) as no more than the effect of that weakness, that delufive caprice, which too often accompanies the decline, of life, and which is apt, by a change of place, to flatter age with a renovation of faculties, and a return of departed genius. Viewing him as a man that fought repofe, my heart welcomed him to the fhores of peace, and wished him what he certainly ought to have wished himself, a quiet obfcurity. But his anfwers to the addreffes of the Democratic and other Societies at New-York, place him in quite a different light, and fubject him to the animadverfions of a public, among whom they have been induftriously propagated.

No man has a right to pry into his neighbour's private concerns; and the opinions of every man are his private concerns, while he keeps them fo; that is to fay, while they are confined to himself, his family, and particular friends; but when he makes thofe opinions public, when he once attempts to make converts, whether it be in religion, politics, or any thing else; when he once comes forward as a candidate for public admiration, esteem, or compaffion,

* He arrived at New-York on the 12th of June, 1794.

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his

his opinions, his principles, his motives, every action of his life, public or private, become the fair fubject of public difcuffion. On this principle, which the Doctor ought to be the last among mankind to controvert, it is eafy to perceive that thefe obfervations need no apology.

His anfwers to the addreffes of the New-York focieties are evidently calculated to miflead and deceive the people of the United States. He there endeayours to impofe himself on them for a fufferer in the caufe of liberty; and makes a canting profeffion of moderation, in direct contradiction to the conduct of his whole life.

He fays he hopes to find here" that protection ❝ from violence which laws and government promife "in all countries, but which he has not found in his "own." He certainly muft fuppofe that no European intelligence ever reaches this fide of the Atlantic, or that the inhabitants of these countries are too dull to comprehend the fublime events that mark his life and character. Perhaps I fhall fhow him that it is not the people of England alone who know how to eftimate the merit of Doctor Priestley.

Let us examine his claims to our compaffion; let us fee whether his charge against the laws and government of his country be juft or not.

On the 14th of July, 1791, an unruly mob affembled in the town of Birmingham, fet fire to his house and burnt it, together with all it contained. This is the fubject of his complaint, and the pretended cause of his emigration. The fact is not denied; but in the relation of facts, circumftances must not be forgotten. To judge of the Doctor's charge against his country, we must take a retrofpective view of his conduct, and of the circumftances that led to the deftruction of his property.

It is about twelve years fince he began to be diftinguifhhed among the diffenters from the established

church

church of England. He preached up a kind of deifm*, which nobody understood, and which it was thought the Doctor understood full as well as his neighbours. This doctrine afterwards affumed the name of Unitarianisin, and the religieux of the order were called, or rather they called themfelves, Unitarians. The fect never rofe into confequence; and the founder had the mortification of feeing his darling Unitarianifm growing quite out of date with himself, when the French revolution came, and gave them both a fhort refpite from eternal oblivion.

Those who know any thing of the English Dif fenters, know that they always introduce their political claims and projects under the mask of religion, The Doctor was one of those who entertained hopes of bringing about a revolution in England upon the French plan; and for this purpose he found it would be very convenient for him to be at the head of a religious fect. Unitarianifm was now revived, and the fociety held regular meetings at Birmingham. In the inflammatory difcourfes, called fermons, delivered at these meetings, the English conftitution was first openly attacked. Here it was that the Doctor beat his drum ecclefiaftic, to raise recruits in the caufe of rebellion. The prefs foon fwarmed with publications expreffive of his principles. The revolutionists began to form focieties all over the kingdom, between which a mode of communication was eftablished, in perfect conformity to that of the Jacobin clubs in France.

*This is one of thofe "hazarded affertions” alluded to in the introductory addrefs. But how is it hazarded? The Doctor fays, in his answer to Paine's Age of Reason, that "the doctrines of “atonement, incarnation, and the trinity, have no more foundation "in the Scriptures, than the doctrine of transmigration." Is not this a kind of deifm? Is it not deifn altogether? Can a man who denies the divinity of Chrift, and that he died to fave finners, have any pretenfions to the name of Chriftian?

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