ple of civil and religious liberty. Indeed, I fear there may be even literary societies in England, and much more the inhabitants of whole towns, who, if they formed any resolutions on the subject, would make them more favourable to the rioters, than to the sufferers at Birmingham; so general, in my present opinion, is the spirit favourable to Church Establishments, and those high maxims of government, by which the instigators of the Riots at Birmingham were actuated. How long this will continue to be the case, I do not say.

Gratitude requires that I should say I have had very flattering prospects held out to me if I would remove to France, where both the laws and the spirit of the people would be much more favourable to me. But there I should be in a manner useless; and as, according to the course of nature, I have yet some years of activity left, and I can employ them to the most advantage in this country, I think it my duty to spend them in it. As to my personal safety, I may surely hope that the horrid scenes at Birmingham, which will long make it "a proverb and a by-word" in Europe, will not be repeated any where else. Or if they be, my life will always be at the disposal of Him that gave it.

If I were disposed to boast, it would be, like Paul, of my sufferings; and though his list, no doubt, far exceeds mine, yet in one respect I think I need not yield to him, or to any man whatever. I mean with respect to calumny, which can hardly go deeper, or extend farther, than it has done with me. To say nothing of old calumnies, which are however, now circulated with as much confidence as ever, such as my having declared that I would never rest till I had pulled down that impostor Jesus Christ; that I made a convert of Silas Deane to Atheism,* &c. &c. &c., thousands have been made to believe that I am not only a speculative Republican, and an enemy to our present government by King, Lords, and Commons, but an advocate for absolute anarchy, or government by mobs, without any rule of proceeding whatever; that by mere mobs I seriously intended to subvert the constitution in church and state, and that Mr. Russell and myself had armed men in readiness to act under our orders for this purpose, so that there could not be a more dangerous subject in any state.†

In a song entitled Old Mother Church, describing the Dissenters, are the two following stanzas:

Sedition is their creed,

Feign'd sheep, but wolves indeed,

How can we trust?

With respect to the subject of this Appeal, the populace of Birmingham were made to believe that I not only dined at the Hotel on the 14th of July last, but declared that if no other person whatever would join me, I would dine there alone. At that dinner it was confidently said, that I gave the toasts, No church, no king, and The king's head in a charger. It was even asserted that I had conveyed gunpowder into one of the churches, and had contrived that it should explode during divine service, and some pious ladies, I am well informed, actually forbore going to church under the apprehension of it. This report was strengthened by another, viz. that two barrels of gunpowder were certainly found in my house.

It has been advanced with equal confidence, and as little regard to truth, that no party-spirit existed in Birmingham till my preaching and writing introduced it. It was no wonder, they also said, that I should discover this turbulence here, when I had shewn the same spirit at Leeds, and had been driven from that, and every other place where I had lived, in the same manner as I had been from this. It was even said, that my own congregation declared that I had misled them, and hoped that I should never be permitted to return.

Nothing now remains but to charge me with a robbery or house-breaking; and then, on such evidence as that on which the preceding and many equally false allegations gained credit, I may, by such a Warwickshire jury as the last,

Gunpowder Priestley would,

Deluge the throne with blood,
And lay the great and good,
Low in the dust.

Hist'ry thy page unfold,
Did not their sires of old,

Murder their king?

And they would overthrow,
King, lords, and bishops too,
And while they gave the blow,
Loyally sing;

O Lord our God arise,
Scatter our enemies,

Aud make them fall.

&c. &c. &c.

The following paragraph from p. 42, of an "Address to Unitarians," by T. G. Hancock, is so curious, that I shall subjoin it to this note:

"Dr. Priestley at present seems a chaos in miniature, not worth God's notice, has neither belief nor understanding given him. For a careful analysis proves his spirit of the order of rebelling angels, his principles frothy and fiery; like fixed and inflammable air, mixed with gunpowder, his body a terra damnata, and the whole compound a devil incarnate. I hope Dissenters will be aware of his seduction, and take heed lest they are deceived through philosophy." (P.)

be legally convicted and executed;* the principal people of Birmingham not interposing to procure me a pardon. If I be so formidable an enemy to the church and the state as I have been represented, let those who call themselves the friends of the church and the king invent their lies, and forge their letters for this purpose, not merely for the burning of my house, my library, and laboratory. This was like shaving the lion's beard, which will grow again, when with the same razor, and with much less trouble, they might have cut his throat.

Let them, however, remember, if they believe any thing of the matter, (for the most zealous friends of Church Establishments, and the most unrelenting persecutors of conscientious men, are not always real believers in Christianity,) that there is an hereafter, and other juries than the late ones of Worcestershire or Warwickshire, before whom they must soon appear. To this judgment I appeal, and before it I cite my accusers.

The reason why I have added Strictures on the Pamphlet entitled THOUGHTS ON THE LATE RIOTS AT BIRMINGHAM, which was published after the greater part of this Appeal was printed, was that, whether it came from any authority, as some have supposed, or not, it speaks the genuine language of the high-church party on the subject, such as has appeared in a less concentrated state in numberless paragraphs in the public newspapers; and without such authentic evidence, what has been said of the low prejudice, the malignant spirit, and absurd reasoning of that party, would hardly be credible, especially to my readers abroad. In any other view, this work would have been unworthy of any notice.

Dr. Priestley here, I apprehend, refers to the jury by whom the rioters were tried, August 22 and 23, 1791. Two out of three of the prisoners having been acquitted, on the former day, Mr. D. P. Coke, counsel for the crown, thus addressed the jury, when the three rioters prosecuted "for pulling down the dwelling house of Dr. Priestley," were tried on the 23rd:

"I do not mean to say that any were improperly acquitted yesterday, but that government have done their duty, and juries are to do theirs. If men are to be persecuted on account of opinions in this country, we live in a country not worth living in. Dr. Priestley, in his public and private character, is an honour to society, and if he is to have his house pulled down because he holds particular religious doctrines and political opinions, you ought to sell your property in the country, and leave it immediately. I do not profess to agree with Dr. Priestley either in his religious or political opinions; but if I had been at Birmingham, I would have lost my life in the protection of his house, and the more so because he holds opinions different from mine." See "The Report of the Trials," Birm. pp. 66, 67.

Of these three rioters two were convicted, of whom one was executed. Had Dr. Priestley reflected on our Capital Punishments, which represent the English nation as the barbarians of Europe, he could scarcely have failed to regret such a retaliation even on a ruffian.

AN APPEAL.

PART I.

All

THERE is no transaction, especially one of a public nature, that will not be viewed by persons of different dispositions, or placed in different situations, in different lights; and least of all can the diligent inquirer expect an impartial account from the persons immediately concerned in it. that he can do must be to compare every account that he can collect, and then form his own judgment. In some respects one party, and in others another, will be the best qualified to give him just information, and among the rest, in all cases of great calamity, he would certainly wish to hear the sufferers themselves, and not wholly depend on the accounts of those who either inflicted the sufferings, or who rejoiced in them. I hope, therefore, it will not be thought improper in me, who am a principal sufferer by the late Riots in Birmingham, to give my account of them, and my ideas of their causes and probable consequences. I shall endeavour to be as candid and impartial as I can, and the intelligent reader will easily perceive whether I be so, or not. I shall divide the work into two parts, Narrative and Reflections.

NARRATIVE.*

I became an inhabitant of Birmingham in the year 1780, without any other view than as a proper situation for attending to my philosophical pursuits, in which, having no original fortune of my own, I was assisted by a few liberal friends

• The narrative part of this Appeal is in a manner confined to what I was witness to myself, and therefore chiefly relates to myself. For an account of the sufferings of others, I refer my readers to "An authentic Account of the Riots in Birmingham," printed by Mr. Belcher. And here I would observe, that if, to the losses that may be claimed in a court of justice, be added those that were necessarily occasioned by the Riots, to many persous who were driven from their houses, obliged to remove their goods, and purchase protection, &c. &c. the sum would be enormous. If the loss of peace of mind could be estimated by money, to what would it not amount? What then have not the pretended friends of the church and the king at Birmingham to answer for? (P.)

of science, who were pleased to think favourably of me in that respect. It was a plan suggested by the late Dr. Fothergill, and cheerfully adopted by Sir George Saville, Sir Stephen Theodore Janssen, Mr. Constable of Burton Constable, and Dr. Price, all of them, it is something remarkable, of different religious persuasions, but equally lovers of experimental philosophy and disinterested promoters of it. Before, and since their deaths, the scheme was patronized by many other generous friends of science, whose names, as they are still living, I forbear to mention.* None of them, I believe, have seen any reason to be dissatisfied with my conduct, as their operator.

In two administrations proposals were made to assist me by a pension. It was alleged that, since my studies had been highly useful to the public, and very expensive to myself, there was much more reason why I should receive this assistance than almost any other person who ever had obtained it. But in both the cases I declined the overture, choosing rather to be obliged to generous individuals, notwithstanding some unpleasant circumstances occasionally attending this situation, than add to the burdens of my country.

My original and favourite profession, however, was that of a Christian minister; in my opinion, the most important, useful, and honourable of all others; for which, though discontinued six years while I was tutor in the academy at Warrington, and seven years while I was with the Marquis of Lansdown, I always had the strongest predilection, and in which I never failed to officiate occasionally, when I was out of the employment. But having been led, in the course of my theological studies, which I never discontinued, to adopt opinions materially different from those of the generality of Dissenters, and in which I could not expect that any considerable society of them would soon concur with me, I had no thought of ever being employed except as an occasional preacher, in assisting those of my friends whose congregations might not dislike my services.

It was, therefore, with equal surprise and pleasure that, on Mr. Hawkes's resignation of his office of minister at the New Meeting in Birmingham, I had an almost unanimous invitation to succeed him. This, however, I accepted on the express condition of the congregation having no claim upon me except on Sundays; the rest of the week being

* See Vol. I. Memoirs, 141-147.

+ See ibid. p. 149.