"Succeeding times great Franklin's works shall quote,
When 'tis forgot--this Peter ever wrote."
And the _Advertiser_ declared:
Peter Porcupine is one of those writers who attempt to deal in
wit--and to bear down every Republican principle by satire--but he
miserably fails in both, for his wit is as stale as his satire,
and his satire as insipid as his wit. He attempts to ridicule Dr.
Franklin, but can any man of sense conceive any poignancy in
styling this great philosopher, "poor Richard," or "the old
lightning rod." Franklin, whose researches in philosophy have
placed him preeminent among the first characters in this country,
or in Europe: is it possible then that such a contemptible wretch
as Peter Porcupine, (who never gave any specimen of his
philosophy, but in bearing with Christian patience a severe
whipping at the public post) can injure the exalted reputation of
this great philosopher? The folly of the Editor of the Centinal,
is the more conspicuous, in inserting his billingsgate abuse in a
Boston paper, when this town, particularly the TRADESMAN of it are
reaping such advantages from Franklin's liberality. The Editor of
the Centinal ought to blush for his arrogance in vilifying this
TRADESMEN'S FRIEND, by retailing the scurrility of so wretched a
puppy as Peter Porcupine.
As to Dr. Priestley, the Editor was obliged to apologise in this
particular--but colours it over as the effusions of genius--poor
apology, indeed to stain his columns with scurrility and abuse,
and after finding the impression too notoriously infamous,
attempts to qualify it, sycophantic parenthesis.
The names of Franklin and Priestley will be enrolled in the
catalogue of worthies, while the wretched Peter Porcupine, and
his more wretched supporters, will sink into oblivion, unless the
register of Newgate should be published, and their memories be
raked from the loathsome rubbish as spectres of universal
destestation.
And the London Monthly Review (August 10, 1796) commented as follows on
Porcupine's animadversions upon Priestley:
Frequently as we have differed in opinion from Dr. Priestley, we
should think it an act of injustice to his merit, not to say that
the numerous and important services which he has rendered to
science, and the unequivocal proofs which he has given of at least
honest intention towards religion and Christianity ought to have
protected him from such gross insults as are poured upon him in
this pamphlet. Of the author's literary talent, we shall say but
little: the phrases, "setting down to count the cost"--"the rights
of the man the greatest bore in nature"--the appellation of
rigmarole ramble, given to a correct sentence of Dr.
Priestley--which the author attempts to criticise--may serve as
specimens of his language.
The pitiful attempt at wit, in his vulgar fable of the pitcher
haranguing the pans and jordans, will give him little credit as a
writer, with readers of an elegant taste.--No censure, however,
can be too severe for a writer who suffers the rancour of party
spirit to carry him so far beyond the bounds of justice, truth and
decency, as to speak of Dr. Priestley as an admirer of the
massacres of France, and who would have wished to have seen the
town of Birmingham like that of Lyons, razed, and all its
industrious and loyal inhabitants butchered as a man whose conduct
proves that he has either an understanding little superior to that
of an idiot, or the heart of Marat: in short, as a man who fled
into banishment covered with the universal destestation of his
countrymen. The spirit, which could dictate such outrageous abuse,
must disgrace any individual and any party.
Even before Porcupine began his abuse of Priestley, there appeared
efforts intended no doubt to arouse opposition to him and dislike for
him. One such, apparently very innocent in its purpose, appeared
shortly after Priestley's settlement in Northumberland. It may be seen
in _the Advertiser_, and reads thus:
The divinity of Jesus Christ proved in a publication to be sold by
Francis Bayley in Market Street, between 3rd and 4th Streets, at
the sign of the _Yorick's Head_--being a reply to Dr. Joseph
Priestley's appeal to the serious and candid professors of
Christianity.
The New York addresses clearly indicated the generous sympathy of hosts
of Americans for Priestley. They were not perfunctory, but genuinely
genuine. This brought joy to the distinguished emigrant, and a sense of
fellowship, accompanied by a feeling of security.
More than a century has passed since these occurrences, and the reader
of today is scarcely stirred by their declarations and appeals. Changes
have come, in the past century, on both sides of the great ocean. Almost
everywhere reigns the freedom so devoutly desired by the fathers of the
long ago. It is so universal that it does not come as a first thought.
Other changes, once constantly on men's minds have gradually been made.
How wonderful has been the development of New York since Priestley's
brief sojourn in it. How marvelously science has grown in the great
interim. What would Priestley say could he now pass up and down the
famous avenues of our greatest City?
His decision to live in America, his labors for science in this land,
have had a share in the astounding unfolding of the dynamical
possibilities of America's greatest municipality.
The Priestleys were delighted with New York. They were frequent dinner
guests of Governor Clinton, whom they liked very much and saw often, and
they met with pleasure Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, the Professor of
Chemistry in Columbia.
Amidst the endless fetes, attendant upon their arrival, there existed a
desire to go forward. The entire family were eager to arrive at their
real resting place--the home prepared by the sons who had preceded them
to this Western world. Accordingly, on June 18, 1794, they left New
York, after a fortnight's visit, and the _Advertiser_ of Philadelphia,
June 21, 1794, contained these lines:
Last Thursday evening arrived in town from New York the justly
celebrated philosopher Dr. Joseph Priestley.
Thus was heralded his presence in the City of his esteemed, honored
friend, Franklin, who, alas! was then in the spirit land, and not able
to greet him as he would have done had he still been a living force in
the City of Brotherly Love. However, a very prompt welcome came from the
American Philosophical Society, founded (1727) by the immortal savant,
Franklin.
The President of this venerable Society, the oldest scientific Society
in the Western hemisphere, was the renowned astronomer, David
Rittenhouse, who said for himself and his associates:
THE American Philosophical Society, held at Philadelphia for
promoting useful knowledge, offer you their sincere
congratulations on your safe arrival in this country. Associated
for the purposes of extending and disseminating those improvements
in the sciences and the arts, which most conduce to substantial
happiness of Man, the Society felicitate themselves and their
country, that your talents and virtues, have been transferred to
this Republic. Considering you as an illustrious member of this
institution: Your colleagues anticipate your aid, in zealously
promoting the objects which unite them; as a virtuous man,
possessing eminent and useful acquirements, they contemplate with
pleasure the accession of such worth to the American Commonwealth,
and looking forward to your future character of a citizen of this,
your adopted country, they rejoice in greeting, as such, an
enlightened Republican.
In this free and happy country, those unalienable rights, which
the Author of Nature committed to man as a sacred deposit, have
been secured: Here, we have been enabled, under the favour of
Divine Providence, to establish a government of Laws, and not of
Men; a government, which secures to its citizens equal Rights, and
equal Liberty, and which offers an asylum to the good, to the
persecuted, and to the oppressed of other climes.
May you long enjoy every blessing which an elevated and highly
cultivated mind, a pure conscience, and a free country are capable
of bestowing.
And, in return, Priestley remarked.
IT is with peculiar satisfaction that I receive the
congratulations of my brethren of the Philosophical Society in
this City, on my arrival in this country. It is, in great part,
for the sake of pursuing our common studies without molestation,
though for the present you will allow, with far less advantage,
that I left my native country, and have come to America; and a
Society of Philosophers, who will have no objection to a person on
account of his political or religious sentiments, will be as
grateful, as it will be new to me. My past conduct, I hope, will
show, that you may depend upon my zeal in promoting the valuable
objects of your institution; but you must not flatter yourself, or
me, with supposing, that, at my time of life, and with the
inconvenience attending a new and uncertain settlement, I can be
of much service to it.
I am confident, however, from what I have already seen of the
spirit of the people of this country, that it will soon appear
that Republican governments, in which every obstruction is removed
to the exertion of all kinds of talent, will be far more
favourable to science, and the arts, than any monarchical
government has ever been. The patronage to be met with there is
ever capricious, and as often employed to bear down merit as to
promote it, having for its real object, not science or anything
useful to mankind, but the mere reputation of the patron, who is
seldom any judge of science. Whereas a Public which neither
flatters nor is to be flattered will not fail in due time to
distinguish true merit and to give every encouragement that it is
proper to be given in the case. Besides by opening as you
generously do an asylum to the persecuted and "oppressed of all
climes," you will in addition to your own native stock, soon
receive a large accession of every kind of merit, philosophical
not excepted, whereby you will do yourselves great honour and
secure the most permanent advantage to the community.
Doubtless in the society of so many worthy Philadelphians, the
Priestleys were happy, for they had corresponded with not a few of them.
The longing for Northumberland became very great and one smiles on
reading that the good Doctor thought "Philadelphia by no means so
agreeable as New York ... Philadelphia would be very irksome to me....
It is only a place for business and to get money in." But in this City
he later spent much of his time.
It was about the middle of July, 1794, that the journey to
Northumberland began, and on September 14, 1794, Priestley wrote of
Northumberland "nothing can be more delightful, or more healthy than
this place."
Safely lodged among those dear to him one finds much pleasure in
observing the great philosopher's activities. The preparation of a home
for himself and his wife and the unmarried members of the family was
uppermost in his mind. But much time was given to correspondence with
loyal friends in England. Chief among these were the Reverends Lindsey
and Belsham. The letters to these gentlemen disclose the plans and
musings of the exile. For instance, in a communication to the former,
dated September 14, 1794, he wrote:
The professor of chemistry in the College of Philadelphia is
supposed to be on his death-bed ... in the case of a vacancy, Dr.
Rush thinks I shall be invited to succeed him. In this case I must
reside four months in one year in Philadelphia, and one principal
inducement with me to accept of it will be the opportunity I shall
have of forming an Unitarian Congregation....
And a month later he observed to the same friend:
Philadelphia is unpleasant, unhealthy, and intolerably
expensive.... Every day I do something towards the continuation of
my Church History.... I have never read so much Hebrew as I have
since I left England....
He visited freely in the vicinity of Northumberland, spending much time
in the open. Davy, a traveler, made this note:
Dr. Priestley visited us at Sunbury, looks well and cheerful, has
left off his perriwig, and combs his short grey locks, in the true
style of the simplicity of the country.... Dined very pleasantly
with him. He has bought a lot of eleven acres (exclusively of that
which he is building on), which commands a delightful view of all
the rivers, and both towns, i.e. Sunbury and Northumberland and
the country. It cost him 100£ currency.
It was also to Mr. Lindsey that he communicated, on November 12, 1794, a
fact of no little interest, even today, to teachers of Chemistry in
America. It was:
I have just received an invitation to the professorship of
chemistry at Philadelphia ... when I considered that I must pass
four months of every year from home, my heart failed me; and I
declined it. If my books and apparatus had been in Philadelphia, I
might have acted differently, but part of them are now arrived
here, and the remainder I expect in a few days, and the expense
and risk of conveyance of such things from Philadelphia hither is
so great, that I cannot think of taking them back ... and in a
year or two, I doubt not, we shall have a college established
here.
It was about this time that his youngest son, Harry, in whom he
particularly delighted, began clearing 300 acres of cheap land, and in
this work the philosopher was greatly interested; indeed, on occasions
he actually participated in the labor of removing the timber. Despite
this manual labor there were still hours of every day given to the
Church History, and to his correspondence which grew in volume, as he
was advising inquiring English friends, who thought of emigrating, and
very generally to them he recommended the perusal of Dr. Thomas Cooper's
"Advice to those who would remove to America--"
Through this correspondence, now and then, there appeared little
animadversions on the quaint old town on the Delaware, such as