from you. But you have been misled. By hearing the Dissenters, and particularly the Unitarian Dissenters, continually railed at, as enemies to the present government in church and state, you have been led to consider any injury done to us as a meritorious thing; and not having been better informed, the means were not attended to. When the object was right, you thought the means could not be wrong. By the discourses of your teachers, and the exclamations of your superiors in general, drinking confusion and damnation to us, (which is well known to have been their frequent practice,) your bigotry has been excited to the highest pitch, and nothing having been said to you to moderate your passions, but every thing to inflame them; hence, without any consideration on your part, or on theirs, who ought to have known and taught you better, you were prepared for every species of outrage; thinking that whatever you could do to spite and injure us, was for the support of government, and especially the church. In destroying us, you have been led to think you did God and your country the most substantial service.

Happily, the minds of Englishmen have an horror of murder, and therefore you did not, I hope, think of that, though by your clamorous demanding of me at the hotel, it is probable, that at that time some of you intended me some personal injury. But what is the value of life, when every thing is done to make it wretched? In many cases there would be greater mercy in dispatching the inhabitants than in burning their houses. However, I infinitely prefer what I feel from the spoiling of my goods, to the disposition of those who have misled you.

You have destroyed the most truly valuable and useful apparatus of philosophical instruments, that perhaps any individual, in this or any other country, was ever possessed of; in my use of which I annually spent large sums, with no pecuniary view whatever, but only in the advancement of science, for the benefit of my country, and of mankind. You have destroyed a library corresponding to that apparatus, which no money can repurchase, except in a long course of time. But what I feel far more, you have destroyed manuscripts, which have been the result of the laborious study of many years, and which I shall never be able to recompose; and this has been done to one who never did, or imagined you any harm.

I know nothing more of the hand-bill, which is said to have enraged you so much, than any of yourselves, and I disapprove of it as much; though it has been made the ostensible handle of doing infinitely more mischief than any thing of that nature could possibly have done. In the celebration of the French Revolution, at which I did not attend, the company assembled on the occasion, only expressed their joy in the emancipation of a neighbouring nation from tyranny, without intimating a desire of any thing more than such an improvement of our own constitution as all sober citizens, of every persuasion, have long wished for. And though, in answer to the gross and unprovoked calumnies of Mr. Madan, and others, I publicly vindicated my principles as a Dissenter, it was only with plain and sober argument, and with perfect good humour. We are better instructed in the mild and forbearing spirit of Christianity than ever

to think of having recourse to violence; and can you think such conduct as yours any recommendation of your religious principles in preference to ours?

You are still more mistaken if you imagine that this conduct of yours has any tendency to serve your cause or to prejudice ours, It is nothing but reason and argument that can ever support any system of religion. Answer our arguments, and your business is done; but your having recourse to violence is only a proof that you have nothing better to produce. Should you destroy myself as well as my house, library and apparatus, ten more persons, of equal or superior spirit and ability, would instantly rise up. If those ten were destroyed, a hundred would appear; and, believe me, that the Church of England, which you now think you are supporting, has received a greater blow by this conduct of yours than I and all my friends have ever aimed at it.

Besides, to abuse those who have no power of making resistance, is equally cowardly and brutal, peculiarly unworthy of Englishmen, to say nothing of Christianity, which teaches us to do as we would be done by. In this business we are the sheep, and you the wolves. We will preserve our character, and hope you will change yours, At all events, we return you blessings for curses; and pray that you may soon return to that industry, and those sober manners, for which the inhabitants of Birmingham were formerly distinguished. I am your sincere well-wisher,

J. PRIESTLEY.

London, July 19, 1791.

No. X.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN OF THE RIOTS IN BIRMINGHAM, FROM A NEWSPAPER CALLED THE TIMES,

(See supra, pp. 379, 393.)

Tuesday, July 19, 1791.

By every account which has arrived from Birmingham, and from authenticated facts in corroboration of what we have already asserted, it is an indisputable truth, that the motives which occasioned the havoc already made among the Dissenters at Birmingham, and which is still in continuance, solely sprung from the loyalty of the people, and the utter abhorrence in which the principles of a republican system of government are held by the public at large.

The public were determined, before they proceeded to violence, to have some further proof of the intention of those commemoration men. The hand-bill might be a forgery, or might be an insidious scheme to raise a mob for the purpose of plunder; they therefore waited until they heard what was said at table, how the political complexion of the company would manifest itself, and whether any thing more than a mere scene of commemoration conviviality was intended.

They had indeed their suspicions, and those suspicions, after the first course, were realised, by the following toast being drank : "DESTRUCTION TO THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT, AND THE KING'S HEAD UPON A CHARGER!"

The inhabitants, and they were almost to a man respectable housekeepers and manufacturers, who waited outside the hotel to watch the motions of the revolutionists within, no sooner had this treasonable toast made known to them, than LOYALTY, swift as lightning, shot through their minds, and a kind of electrical patriotism animated them to instant vengeance. They rushed into this conventicle of treason, and before the second course was well laid upon the table, broke the windows and glasses, pelted and insulted these modern reformers, and obliged them to seek for safety in immediate flight.

An inflammatory bill in Doctor Priestley's hand-writing was found among his papers, and has been transmitted to the Secretary of State. The Doctor is at Kidderminster, to which place it is said the populace mean to follow him. His doctrines, they avow, were

meant to subvert the constitution.

Mr. Parker, a very eminent attorney, is the person who sent up the inflammatory and treasonable paper found in Priestley's house, and in the Doctor's own hand, which it is thought is a full ground for prosecution.

It may be amusing to some of my readers to see the following account of the Riots at Birmingham, written on the spot and at the time, by a member of the establishment, in letters to a friend of his near Maidstone, in Kent, and published in a Supplement to the Maidstone Journal, for Tuesday, July the 19th last, as it shews with how little feeling, or sense of impropriety, some persons can relate the most atrocious actions, in the full view of all their enormity, when they are well wishers to the cause in which they are performed. The mistakes and exaggerations in this account are also amusing. I would likewise observe that Mr. Walter, the printer of the paper called THE TIMES, assures me that his account, false and malignant as it is, was written by "a gentleman of great respectability, at Birmingham, and of large commercial concerns." But this kind of respectability does not always give liberality of sentiment, just notions of right and wrong, or proper feelings.

LETTER I.

Thursday Evening.

"THE Deists here, after their utmost endeavours, sat down eighty-two. The mob increasing in number and silence, they broke up in less than two hours-their names will appear in white letters and black paper. Some of them were rudely handled. Priestley durst not appear; the inclosed paper* inflamed much. I cannot

• Alluding to the seditious hand-bill. (P.) See No. VII.

think we have any thing to fear; we must be blind indeed, provided the kingdom is as flourishing as Birmingham, for we are richer, and our trade better than ever."

LETTER II.

Sunday Noon.

"To remove your fears on our account, I send you the particulars of our commotions: on Thursday evening the zealous assembled in St. Philip's church-yard, and broke a few windows at the hotel; Dadley appearing, declared himself attached to high-church and king. It was settled for their leader to examine his house, and not a disaffected person being there, they went to the New Meeting, which was soon in flames; then to the Old Meeting, but they first desired the charity children to be sent to their homes; they were informed the houses on each side belonged to loyalists, whose property they are as cautious of as possible; therefore, to preserve whatever belonged to them, they gutted the Old Meeting, laid the wood in a pile in the meeting-yard, and burnt it there; then took the bricks down with care, which employed them all night: a party was sent to secure Dr. Priestley, who escaped very narrowly: his house with every thing they could find fell a victim to the flames; they then destroyed Mr. Ryland's house, late Baskerville's; then Bordesley, then Mr. Hutton's. I went by desire of our neighbour Cooper into Hutton's house, to request they would not fire it, as many loyal people would suffer. They knew me, shook me heartily by the hand, and promised me no fire, which was observed. I am confidently informed, that a woman bringing a candle was knocked down; they then went to Mr. G. Humphrys's, Mr. W. Russell's, and Moseley-Hall, where they waited for the tenant, Lady Carhampton, removing her effects, they then destroyed the house as they had done those of the preceding persons. They are still in the country: their objects are the Meeting-house at Withwood-heath, with the teacher's, Coates's at the Five-ways, late Wesley's, and Lady Wood; and they declare, that unless Priestley is delivered to them, no Dissenters shall escape. On Friday five hundred gentlemen began cudgelling them, and drove them, but this only made them more outrageous, and we have now no hopes of quieting them but from the military; the same day they gave notice by their bellman, that every house that had not High-Church and King written upon it, would be destroyed.

"No money or any thing else has any influence, nor have they been diverted from any one of their attempts; they seem to move quite systematically, and say, they are only doing what their enemies would have done by them. We are, I consider, quite safe; the only inconvenience we have felt, has been from a few stragglers, who have taken the advantage of the times in extorting money, but the loyal mob, yesterday, as soon as they were informed of it, sent a party who beat them severely, and they are at present dispersed. "P.S. I am informed they are now at Edgbaston, in consequence

of their finding a letter of Dr. W. at Russell's; they now say they regard no persuasion, every enemy to high-church shall fall."

"Mr. Ryland's house, which has been burnt down, was set fire to on account of his son's having assisted in the escape of Dr. Priestley, whom the mob have pursued in different directions. Should the Doctor not be able to elude their vigilance, it is much to be apprehended that they will murder him, as he is considered the mischievous author of all the treasonable hand-bills that have been circulated about the town, and which first produced the Riot.

"The Methodists and followers of the Countess of Huntingdon have been all protected. In the beginning of the Riots the mob went to some of their houses, and questioned them concerning the doctrines which they professed, and on their declaring for Church and King, they were assured that they should remain unmolested. The church people walk about as usual, without the smallest apprehension of danger.

"The hotel belonging to Dadley, where the Revolutionists dined, has been only damaged by the windows being broken, the mob refusing to pull it down because he was a churchman.

"Mr. Humphrys, whose house at the turnpike was pulled down, offered the mob 4000 and afterwards 8000 guineas if they would desist; but they declared that money was not their object, and that they pulled down his house because they considered him as a principal person concerned in the inflammatory hand-bills; perhaps too for his ridiculing the national church by building a cow-lodge in the form of a chapel."

"Unless

A letter dated Sunday night at eleven o'clock, says, some soldiers arrive early to-morrow morning, we are in very great apprehension that every Dissenter's house in Birmingham will be destroyed, and with them, no doubt, many other houses which were never intended. Near one hundred houses have been set on fire and pulled down, and about sixty more are marked for the purpose of being burnt or destroyed. At nine o'clock last night it was computed that the damage already done amounted to 250,000l. Those which we have mentioned belong to principal people."

No. XI.

MR. RUSSELL'S LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING

SIR,

CHRONICLE.

(See supra, pp. 379, 380.)

BEING in London, and seeing in The Times of yesterday the most atrocious calumny that was ever laid before the public, I feel it my duty immediately to contradict it in the most pointed terms. I do, therefore, declare, that the narrative of the Birmingham Constitu

VOL. XIX.

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