JOSEPH PRIESTLEY.

J

OSEPH PRIESTLEY, an eminent dissenting divine, and

experimental philosopher. His liberal religious principles, and his avowed partiality to the French Revolution, aroused the hatred of the high church and tory party, and his house, library, manuscripts at Birmingham, England, where he resided and apparatus, were burned by a zealous and bigoted mob. He was also exposed to great personal danger. He emigrated to North America in 1804, and settled at Northumberland in Pennsylvania. His published works comprise between seventy and eighty volumes, among which his History of the Corruptions of Christianity, and Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever will be remembered.

In 1797 Count Volney honored Dr. Priestley with a letter in answer to his pamphlet entitled, Observations on the Increase of Infidelity, with animadversions upon the writings of several modern unbelievers, and especially the Ruins of Mr. Volney.

At the home of Clio Rickman in London, Dr. Priestley made the acquaintance of Thomas Paine, John Horne Tooke, and other celebrated English reformers.—E.

Boston, with the loss of sixty-five killed, one hundred and eighty wounded, and twenty-eight prisoners. Blood being thus drawn, the whole of the discontented States flew to arms, and adopted energetic and prompt measures to repel the royal usurpation. Volunteers enrolled themselves in every province, and throughout the Union the "king's" stores were seized for the use of the rebels. George Washington was appointed commander-in-chief, and military operations commenced. Hopes of reconciliation were still entertained by many; and another petition, temperate and respectful, was presented, on the Ist of September, to the "Muley Moloch" of England, the "Father of his people." Three days after Mr. Penn, the bearer, was informed by Lord Dartmouth that "no answer would be given to it.” In accordance with this "policy," immense levies of soldiers were made in England; treaties were entered into with some of the paltry butcher-sovereigns of Germany, the "divine-right" sellers of human flesh, who agreed to furnish "men" at so much a head, to murder the rebellious Americans; and, not only in opposition to the commercial interests of Great Britain, but also in despite of the expressed wishes of great bodies of the British people, of the wishes of all, indeed, save the high church-and-king bigots and the priest-ridden serfs, havoc was let loose by God's vicegerent upon an unoffending people; and all chance of peace, save through "unconditional" and most base submission, effectually annihilated. Previously to this, a desultory civil war, began at Lexington, was prosecuted with alternating success. Many of the colonists still held aloof from the cause of liberty: some in sheer cowardice; some "moderate" men, half inclined to slavery, whose chains were tolerably gilded, or whose spirits were degraded; some honest patriots, but men of peace, anxious to avert the desolation of their country, anxiously watching any shadow of reconciliation; some

summer soldiers, tired of hard fare and blows: these formed a large party of neutrals, enough to swamp the best endeavors. While the public mind was thus divided, news arrived of the hateful obstinacy of the English government. The waverers were yet more fearful; traitors more calmorous. What hope for the peace seekers? What escape for the peace-breakers? What was to be done? On the very day on which the king's firebrand speech made its appearance, Common Sense confronted it-confronted the timid and the time-waiting -and answered the question. The Independence of America was proclaimed !

66

CHAPTER III.

THE AUTHOR; THE SOLDIER; THE SECRETARY.

"N

OTHING could have been better timed"* than the appearance of COMMON SENSE.

"This

pamphlet of forty-seven octavo pages, holding out relief by proposing independence to an oppressed and despairing people, was published in January, 1776; speaking a language which the colonists had felt, but not thought of. Its popularity, terrible in its consequences to the parent country, was unexampled in the history of the press. At first involving the colonists, it was thought, in the crime of rebellion, and pointing to a road leading inevitably to ruin, it was read with indignation and alarm; but when the reader (and every body read it), recovering from the first shock, re-perused it, its arguments, nourishing his feelings and appealing to his pride, re-animated his hopes, and satisfied his understanding that Common Sense, backed by the resources and force of the colonies, poor and feeble as they were, could alone rescue them from the unqualified oppression with which they were threatened. The unknown author, in the moments of enthusiasm which succeeded, was hailed as an angel sent from heaven to save from all the horrors of slavery, by his timely, powerful and unerring councils, a faithful but abused, a brave but misrepresented people."+ Thus writes even the infamous traducer of Paine. This sufficiently witnesses the avidity with which the contents of the pamphlet were seized by the American mind. "I gave the copyright," says the

* Ramsay's American Revolution.

† Cheetham.

author, "to every state in the Union, and the demand. ran to not less than one hundred thousand copies."* Owing to this disinterestedness, though the sale of Common Sense was so great, the author was in debt to the printer £29 12s. Id. The motives which produced the work may also claim our admiration, as much as this magnificent offering at the shrine of freedom. Hear him state them himself, with some little egotism it may be, but with a self-gratulation surely warranted and inoffensive:

"Politics and self-interest have been so uniformly connected, that the world, from being so often deceived, has a right to be suspicious of public characters. But with regard to myself I am perfectly easy on this head. I did not, at my first setting out in public life, turn my thoughts to subjects of government from motives of interest; and my conduct proves the fact. I saw an opportunity in which I thought I could do some good, and I followed exactly what my heart dictated, I neither read books nor studied other people's opinionsI thought for myself."-"It was the cause of America that made me an author. The force with which it struck my mind made it impossible for me, feeling as I did, to be silent; and if I have rendered her any service, I have added likewise something to the reputation of literature, by freely and disinterestedly employing it in the service of mankind, and showing there may be genius without prostitution.'

Mighty indeed was the effect of the publication of this one man's thoughts. Million-voiced their echo from the hearts of colonized America. The doctrine of independence had found an efficient preacher; and the independent spirit was breathed even into the dry bones of the world-withered trembler. The dead became quick; the living had found a voice. On the first *Rights of Man, part 2. Rights of Man, part 2.

† Rickman, p. 68.