Determines to leave England--His arrival in America--Settles at
Northumberland--His closing days--His death.
Priestley's position in London for some time after his arrival there was
very insecure, and so apprehensive were his friends of further outrage
that it was thought necessary to provide him with a disguise and to
arrange a plan of escape in case the house should be attacked. At first
he was not allowed to appear in the streets. Ultimately he was moved to
Tottenham, where he spent a month.
In the middle of October a house was taken for him in Hackney, but it
was with difficulty that the landlord, who feared his property would be
demolished, was persuaded to accept him as a tenant. Here, however, he
proceeded to build himself a laboratory, and in a letter to Thomas
Wedgwood, of October 18, 1791, he says:--
"As soon as convenient I shall be obliged to your father if he will
supply me, as usual, with such retorts as you make, viz., earthen
tubes closed at the end and open, and some with two necks. Small
_retorts_, _evaporating-dishes_, _mortars_ and _levigators_. Perhaps
your servants here can tell me the price at which I must estimate
those that were destroyed by the riot. I must soon give in an account
of my losses, and I fear that some person on your part must attend at
Warwick to attest the value. Mr Nairn, Mr Parker and others have
promised to attend. But I have prepared [proposed] a conference
between my appraiser and those for the county in London, which, if
they be disposed to do justice, will save much trouble and expense.
"Whether I shall be invited to succeed Dr Price is uncertain. Many
apprehend public disturbance in consequence of my coming. I could not
get a house let in my own name. A friend took it in his. I have,
however, very handsome proposals from France, particularly the offer
of a house completely furnished, two miles from Paris, and another
polite invitation from Toulouse, to take up my residence in the South
of France in 'a monastery which reason has recovered from
superstition.'"
Priestley's claim for damages amounted to £3628, 8s. 9d. Hutton says his
real loss was upwards of £4500 (Jewitt's _Life of Hutton_, p. 255). The
Court allowed £2502, 18s. In the town of Birmingham property to the
value of £50,000 was destroyed, of which sum £26,961, 2s. 3d. was
finally paid by a rate on the Hundred, in which Birmingham is included
(Sam Timmins, _Trans. Midl. Inst._, 1875).
Lindsey, writing to his friend, Alexander of Yarmouth, under date
October 15, 1791, mentioning Priestley, says:--
"He is very well, and with his wonted cheerfulness, which has never
forsaken him. Sunday last he preached for me for the first time since
he has been expelled by fire and destruction out of his own place of
worship, and he does me that favour to-morrow again. He has at last,
though very reluctantly, and much to the concern of his late beloved
people, given up the thought of continuing the pastoral office among
them, as the exercise of it would not probably be consistent with his
personal safety and liberty; such is the temper of his many
adversaries still, and so hostile to him."
The managers of other Dissenting chapels had not the courage of Lindsey
and begged that he would refrain from preaching to their congregations.
Eventually he was invited to take the position formerly occupied by his
friend Price.
The rancour of his enemies now broke out afresh, and the most persistent
efforts were made to damage and disparage him in the eyes of his
congregation. His friends in the neighbourhood were advised to move
their effects to some place of greater safety, as it was common rumour
that his house was to be attacked on the succeeding anniversary of the
Birmingham riot. His servants were afraid to remain for any length of
time with him, and the tradespeople hesitated to take his custom. He was
several times burnt in effigy along with Tom Paine. Coloured caricatures
of him, of the grossest and coarsest kind, in which he was described as
"the treacherous rebel and Birmingham rioter" were scattered broadcast.
Insulting letters, in some of which he was likened to Guy Fawkes or the
devil himself, were sent to him from all parts of the country, even from
men calling themselves ministers of the Gospel. In one of these he was
threatened with being burned alive before a slow fire. The Rev. Dr
Tatham, Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, whose biographer compared him
with Warburton ("There is much of the same rough, unpolished strength in
his language"), thus addressed him:--
"Long have you been the Danger of this country, the Bane of its
Polity, and the Canker-worm of its Happiness. Long, too long, have
your Principles tended to bereave it of its Religion, its
Constitution, and consequently of its King."
Burke, to his everlasting shame, inveighed against him in the House of
Commons, and many of his associates in the Royal Society shunned him.
His position in the Society became eventually so irksome that he
withdrew from it, as he explains in the preface to his _Observations and
Experiments on the Generation of Air from Water_, which he published in
pamphlet form at Hackney, with a dedication to the members of the Lunar
Society.
In a letter to Withering, written from Clapton, October 2, 1792, he
says:--
"... One of the things that I regret the most in being expelled from
Birmingham is the loss of your company and that of the rest of the
Lunar Society. I feel I want the spur to constant exertion which I had
with you. My philosophical friends here are cold and distant. Mr
Cavendish never expressed the least concern on account of anything I
had suffered, though I joined a party with which he was, and talked
with them some time. I do not expect to have much intercourse with any
of them.
"I have, however, nearly replaced my apparatus, and intend not to be
idle. I have already made some experiments relating to the _doctrine
of phlogiston_, and when I have made a few more shall probably write
something on the subject. I am surprised at the confidence with which
the French chemists write; but I cannot yet learn what they have to
object to my last paper in the _Philosophical Transactions_....
"I was in hopes to have been able to pay my friends of Birm. a visit
long before this time, but was always discouraged, so that I have now
given up the thoughts of it, and must content myself with seeing as
many of them as I can here.... I do not, however, think I shall
continue here long. Though unwillingly, I shall some time hence follow
my son to France. But as I can _do_ nothing there I will stay here as
long as I can."
To what lengths the Government were determined to go was seen in their
banishment, in 1793, of Thomas Fyshe Palmer, a gentleman of a highly
respectable and opulent family in Bedfordshire, to Botany Bay for seven
years, because he had been concerned in publishing a paper in favour of
Parliamentary Reform; and in their treatment of Mr Winterbotham, a
Calvinistic minister of Plymouth Dock, on account of his political
opinions. The mock trial of Mr Winterbotham at Newgate and the four
years' imprisonment which followed it, created a wide-spread feeling of
indignation and alarm, and many families were constrained to leave the
country in disgust. Among them was Priestley's friend and
fellow-sufferer, the worthy Mr Russell, who on his way to Boston, New
England, was captured with his family by a French privateer and thrown
into prison in Brest.
Priestley, at length, also determined to follow them. It was however
with the greatest reluctance that he came to that decision. It meant
parting from affectionate and devoted friends to whom he was warmly
attached, whose zeal to serve him and to minister to his wants far
outweighed the hatred of those who sought to cover him with oblivion. It
meant too the relinquishment in large measure of his philosophical
pursuits since he could not hope to procure elsewhere the same
facilities for inquiry that he enjoyed here. More than all it seemed to
mean the relinquishment of what was still dearer to him--his active
efforts in the propagation of Unitarianism. Lastly it meant in all human
probability a lasting severance from the daughter to whom he was so
tenderly attached. He was largely guided to his decision by
consideration for his sons, since, as he says, he found that the bigotry
of the country in general made it impossible for him to place them here
with any advantage. His second son, William, had been some time in
France, but on the breaking out of the troubles in that country he had
embarked for America, where his two brothers, Joseph and Henry, met him.
They had a project of founding a settlement near the head of the
Susquehanna in Pennsylvania, and several of Priestley's friends at home,
among them Mr William Russell of Birmingham, a leader of the New
Meeting-House, were directly interested in the scheme.
Priestley at length decided to throw in his lot with his sons, and in
the preface to his _Fast and Farewell Sermons_, which he delivered to
his Hackney congregation on the eve of his departure, he gave his
reasons for leaving the country:--
"After the riots in Birmingham it was the expectation, and evidently
the wish of many persons, that I should immediately fly to France or
America. But I had no consciousness of guilt to induce me to fly from
my country. On the contrary, I came directly to London, and instantly,
by means of my friend, Mr Russell, signified to the King's ministers
that I _was_ there and ready, if they thought proper, to be
interrogated on the subject of the riots.
"Ill-treated as I thought I had been, not merely by the populace of
Birmingham, for they were the mere tools of their superiors, but by
the country in general, which evidently exulted in our sufferings, and
afterwards by the representatives of the nation, who refused to
inquire into the cause of them, I own I was not without deliberating
upon the subject of emigration; and several flattering proposals were
made to me, especially from France, which was then at peace within
itself and with all the world; and I was at one time much inclined to
go thither, on account of its nearness to England, the agreeableness
of its climate, and my having many friends there.
"But I likewise considered that if I went thither I should have no
employment of the kind to which I had been accustomed; and the season
of active life not being, according to the course of nature, quite
over, I wished to make as much use of it as I could. I therefore
determined to continue in England, exposed as I was not only to
unbounded obloquy and insult, but to every kind of outrage; and after
my invitation to succeed my friend Dr Price I had no hesitation about
it...."
He then goes on to show how insecure his position was, and how
impossible it was to follow his avocations in peace, in face of the
odium and insult he continually met with:--
"These facts not only show how general was the idea of my particular
insecurity in this country, but what is of much more consequence, and
highly interesting to the country at large, an idea of the general
disposition to rioting and violence that prevails in it, and that the
Dissenters are the objects of it. Mr Pitt very justly observed, in his
speech on the subject of the riots at Birmingham, that it was 'the
effervescence of the public mind.' Indeed, the effervescible matter
has existed in this country ever since the civil wars in the time of
Charles I., and it was particularly apparent in the reign of Queen
Anne. But the power of Government under the former princes of the
House of Hanover prevented its doing any mischief. The late events
show that this power is no longer exerted as it used to be, but that
on the contrary there prevails an idea, well or ill founded, that
tumultuary proceedings against Dissenters will not receive any
effectual discouragement.
"After what has taken place with respect to Birmingham, all idea of
much hazard for insulting and abusing the Dissenters is entirely
vanished; whereas the disposition to injure the Catholics was
effectually checked by the proceedings of the year 1780. From that
time they have been safe, and rejoice in it. But from the year 1791
the Dissenters have been more exposed to insult and outrage than ever.
"The necessity I was under of sending my sons out of this country was
my principal inducement to send the little property that I had out of
it too; so that I had nothing in England besides my library, apparatus
and household goods.
"By this I felt myself greatly relieved, it being of little
consequence where a man already turned sixty ends his days. Whatever
good or evil I have been capable of is now chiefly done; and I trust
that the same consciousness of integrity which has supported me
hitherto will carry me through anything that may yet be reserved for
me. Seeing, however, no great prospect of doing much good, or having
much enjoyment here, I am now preparing to follow my sons; hoping to
be of some use to them in their present unsettled state, and that
Providence may yet, advancing in years as I am, find me some sphere of
usefulness with them."
He then goes on to deal with the charge that he was a factious,
political parson who preached sedition:--
"As to the great odium that I have incurred, the charge of _sedition_,
or my being an enemy to the constitution or peace of my country, is a
mere pretence for it; though it has been so much urged that it is now
generally believed, and all attempts to undeceive the public with
respect to it avail nothing at all. The whole course of my studies
from early life shows how little _politics_ of any kind have been my
object. Indeed, to have written so much as I have in _theology_, and
to have done so much in _experimental philosophy_, and at the same
time to have had my mind occupied, as it is supposed to have been,
with factious politics, I must have had faculties more than human."
It is true, he says, he wrote a pamphlet "On the State of Liberty in
this Country" at the time of Wilkes's election for Middlesex, and at the
request of Franklin he wrote an address to the Dissenters on the subject
of the approaching rupture with America; but he has nothing to reproach
himself with on that score, and posterity agrees with him. His
connection with the Marquis of Lansdowne was in no sense political.
"Although," he says, "I entered into almost all his views, as thinking
them just and liberal, I never wrote a single political pamphlet, or
even a paragraph in a newspaper, all the time that I was with him, which
was seven years."
He had never preached a political sermon in his life, unless such as he
believed all Dissenters usually preached on the 5th of November in
favour of civil and religious liberty may be said to be political. Even
on those occasions he had never advanced any sentiment that would have
made him until then obnoxious to the administration of this country. The
doctrines he adopted when young, and which were even popular then
(except with the clergy, who were at that time generally disaffected to
the family on the throne), he could not now abandon merely because the
times were so changed that they had become unpopular and the expression
of them hazardous.
Although he did not disapprove of societies for political information,
he never was a member of one, nor did he ever attend any public meeting
if he could decently avoid it.
"If, then, my real crime has not been _sedition_, or _treason_, what
has it been? For every _effect_ must have some adequate _cause_, and
therefore the odium that I have incurred must have been owing to
something in my declared sentiments or conduct that has exposed me to
it. In my opinion it cannot have been anything but my open hostility
to the doctrines of the Established Church, and more especially to all
civil establishments of religion whatever. This has brought upon me
the implacable resentment of the great body of the clergy; and they
have found other methods of opposing me besides _argument_ and that
use of the _press_ which is equally open to us all. They have also
found an able ally and champion in Mr Burke, who (without any
provocation except that of answering his book on the French
Revolution) has taken several opportunities of inveighing against me
in a place where he knows I cannot reply to him, and from which he
also knows that his accusation will reach every corner of the country
and consequently thousands of persons who will never read any writings
of mine. They have had another, and still more effectual vehicle of
their abuse in what are called the _treasury newpapers_, and other
popular publications.
. . . . . . .
"I could, if I were so disposed, give my readers many more instances
of the bigotry of the clergy of the Church of England with respect to
me which could not fail to excite in generous minds equal indignation
and contempt: but I forbear. Had I, however, foreseen what I am now
witness to, I certainly should not have made any attempt to replace my
library or apparatus, and I soon repented of having done it. But this
being done, I was willing to make some use of both before another
interruption of my pursuits.... I hoped to have had no occasion for
more than one, and that a final, remove. But the circumstances above
mentioned have induced me, though with great and sincere regret, to
undertake another, and to a greater distance than any that I have
hitherto made.... And I trust that the same good Providence which has
attended me hitherto, and made me happy in my present situation, and
all my former ones, will attend and bless me in which may still be
before me. In all events the will of God be done.
"I cannot refrain from repeating again that I leave my native country
with real regret, never expecting to find anywhere else society so
suited to my disposition and habits, such friends as I have here
(whose attachment has been more than a balance to all the abuse I have
met with from others), and especially to replace one particular
Christian friend, in whose absence I shall, for some time at least,
find all the world a blank. Still less can I expect to resume my
favourite pursuits with anything like the advantages I enjoy here. In
leaving this country I also abandon a source of maintenance which I
can but ill bear to lose. I can, however, truly say that I leave it
without any resentment or ill-will. On the contrary, I sincerely wish
my countrymen all happiness; and when the time for reflection (which
my absence may accelerate) shall come they will, I am confident, do me
more justice. They will be convinced that every suspicion they have
been led to entertain to my disadvantage has been ill founded, and
that I have even some claim to their gratitude and esteem. In this
case I shall look with satisfaction to the time when, if my life be
prolonged, I may visit my friends in this country; and perhaps I may,
notwithstanding my removal for the present, find a grave (as I believe
is naturally the wish of every man) in the land that gave me birth."
As the time of his departure drew near his friends vied with each other
in their expressions of esteem and affection and many evidences of their
regret were offered to him. Among these was a silver inkstand from some
of his admirers in the University of Cambridge, on which was an
inscription of their sorrow "that this expression of their esteem should
be occasioned by the ingratitude of their country."
On April 8, 1794, Priestley and his wife set sail from London, and
arrived at New York on June 4.
On the way out he wrote some _Observations on the Cause of the Present
Prevalence of Infidelity_, which he prefixed to a new edition of his
_Letters to the Philosophers and Politicians of France_.
Alas! one of the most distinguished of those philosophers and
politicians was even then no more. Coffinhal had pronounced his
judgment, declaring "the Republic has no need of men of science," and
whilst Priestley was on the high seas his great protagonist, Lavoisier,
more unfortunate even than he, met his death on the scaffold.
"Such was the treatment bestowed upon the best of their citizens by
two nations which considered themselves as without exception the most
civilised and enlightened in the world!"
Priestley was well received in New York, many people meeting him on
landing, and he was presented with addresses of welcome from various
societies. After a stay of about a fortnight he proceeded to
Philadelphia and received an address from the American Philosophical
Society, and by a unanimous vote of the trustees was offered the
Professorship of Chemistry in the University of Philadelphia.
In the following July, in order to escape from the heat of the city, he
moved to Northumberland, a town about a hundred and thirty miles
north-west of Philadelphia and situated at the confluence of the
north-east and west branches of the Susquehanna, near to which place his
eldest son, together with certain other persons, mainly Englishmen,
projected a settlement. Priestley himself had no pecuniary interest, as
has been stated, in the undertaking, and he was not consulted in its
formation, nor had he even decided to join it if carried into effect. We
learn from his son's account that the scheme of settlement was not to be
confined to any particular class or character of men, religious or
political. It was set on foot to be, as it were, a rallying point for
the English, who were at that period emigrating to America in great
numbers, and who, it was thought, would be more happy in society of the
kind they had been accustomed to than they would be if dispersed through
the whole of the States.
Owing to disagreements among the projectors, the scheme of the
settlement fell through. Priestley, however, who was charmed with the
beauty of its situation and the nature of its surroundings, determined
to settle at Northumberland. Although at that time remote from any
considerable town it was obviously destined to become a great
thoroughfare. It was apparently healthy and less enervating, at least in
summer time, than Philadelphia. Living was cheaper there than in that
city, and he would be more free from care and more at liberty to follow
his own pursuits than if burdened with the responsibilities of teaching.
Lastly, his poor wife, who had never recovered from the shock of the
Birmingham riots, needed rest and quiet. On these grounds, therefore, he
decided to decline the offer of the Professorship at Philadelphia, as
well as an invitation to take charge of an Unitarian congregation at New
York, and to spend his remaining days in peace and retirement on the
beautiful spot he had chosen. The year before his death he was offered
the principalship of the University of Pennsylvania in succession to Dr
Euen, but this office also he declined.
On his first settling at Northumberland in 1795 he was mainly occupied
with his theological and metaphysical studies. During this year he
published the work which had occupied him during his voyage from
England, his _Fast and Farewell Sermons_, some tracts in defence of
Unitarianism, and the third part of his _Letters to a Philosophical
Unbeliever_, in answer to Paine's _Age of Reason_, and he continued his
_Church History from the Fall of the Western Empire to the Reformation_.
In the house he had first occupied, which was barely sufficient in size
to contain the family, he had little opportunity or convenience for
doing experimental work.
Still, he made some observations on the analysis of air, and continued
his inquiries on the generation of air from water.
Having determined to make Northumberland his home, he proceeded to build
a house more suitable to his needs and pursuits, and, as his letters of
the period show, its planning and arrangement gave him much thought and
greatly interested him.
The house, which still exists, is similar in character to many
middle-class American houses built in the country, a plain substantial
erection, covered with match-boarding and fitted with jalousies, and to
the front a loggia or verandah. The laboratory is a small building to
the side, partially shaded by a large, wide-spreading tree.
In the autumn of this year he lost his youngest son, Henry, a bright and
intelligent youth, of whom he was remarkably fond. This loss greatly
affected him, for he had hopes that the young man would follow him in
his theological and philosophical pursuits, to which he had shown an
inclination. The death of his son was even more profoundly felt by his
wife, whose health and spirits now began rapidly to decline, and she too
passed away a few months later.
"Through life," says her son, "she had been truly a helpmeet for him;
supporting him under all his trials and sufferings with a constancy
and perseverance truly praiseworthy, and who, as he himself, in noting
the event in his diary, justly observes, 'was of a noble and generous
mind, and cared much for others and little for herself through life.'"
At about this period he preached and printed another of his defences of
Unitarianism and completed his _Church History_, and began the
compilation of his last treatise in defence of phlogiston.
He spent the spring of 1796 in Philadelphia, where he delivered a series
of lectures on the evidences of revelation to crowded audiences,
including most of the members of the United States Congress, at that
time sitting in Philadelphia, and of the executive officers of the
Government. He delivered a second series on the same subject in the
spring of the following year, but with less success, partly owing, his
son imagines, to the novelty of the thing having passed away, and partly
from prejudices that began to be excited against him on account of his
supposed political principles. In reality Priestley took even less
interest in the politics of America than he had done in those of his own
country. He seldom read the debates in Congress, and beyond Adams and
Jefferson he knew few of the leading politicians. He never attended a
political meeting or took part directly or indirectly in an election,
and excepting an article in a newspaper called "Aurora," or "Maxims of
Political Arithmetic," and signed "A Quaker in Politics," he wrote
nothing on the subject of politics. At that period political feeling ran
high and politics were the one subject of conversation, and to some
extent, therefore, he could not escape their discussion, but it was
noticed that he always argued on the side of liberty. As regards British
politics his speculations went no further than a reform in Parliament,
such as that which was accomplished less than thirty years after his
death. He had no desire to see changed the constitution of the kingdom
as vested in King, Lords and Commons.
"He used frequently to say," says his son, "and it was said of him,
that though he was an Unitarian in religion he was in that country a
Trinitarian in politics. When he came to America he found reason to
change his opinions, and he became a decided friend to the general
principles and practice of a completely representative Government,
founded upon universal suffrage, and excluding hereditary privileges,
as it exists in this country. This change was naturally produced by
observing the ease and happiness with which the people lived, and the
unexampled prosperity of the country."
But in his feelings he was still an Englishman. He never was
naturalised, saying that as he had been born and had lived an Englishman
he would die one, let what might be the consequence.
Towards the end of 1797 his new library and laboratory were finished,
his books once more arranged and much of his old apparatus installed. He
found workmen in Northumberland who could repair his instruments and
make such new ones as he wanted. He was thus able to resume the kind of
life he led at Birmingham, spending much of the day in the laboratory or
alternately in his study, sometimes engaged on experimental philosophy,
at other times in the composition of the theological works which seemed
to flow in an unending stream from his pen. He delighted to walk in his
garden and to view the beautiful prospect it afforded him of the river
and the distant landscape. He had, too, a kindly interest in the whole
community, and noted with pleasure the many little improvements going
forward in and about the town. There was no apparent abatement in the
vigour of his mind or in the keenness and enthusiasm with which he
followed the extraordinary expansion of the science he loved so well
during the opening years of the nineteenth century. In a letter to
Humphry Davy, then at the outset of his brilliant career, he says:--
"It gives me peculiar satisfaction that, as I am far advanced in life
and cannot expect to do much more, I shall leave so able a
fellow-labourer of my own country in the great fields of experimental
philosophy.... I rejoice that you are so young a man; and perceiving
the ardour with which you begin your career I have no doubts of your
success."
The following letter to his old friend Mrs Barbauld, with whom he kept
up a correspondence to the last, gives some account of his condition at
this time:--
"Dear Madam,--This will, I hope, be delivered, as it will be conveyed
by my son. How happy should I think myself to wait on you and Mr
Barbauld in person. Should there be a _peace_, I do promise myself
that pleasure, but at present this great blessing seems to be at a
great distance. How many melancholy changes have taken place since I
left England, and among these is the death of Dr Enfield, a man at
least ten years younger than me, and to appearance more healthy. I am
also much alarmed at the accounts I receive of your brother [Dr John
Aiken], whom I left in perfect health, but the last were rather more
favourable. His life is of great value, both to his relatives,
acquaintances and the world at large, few men having been more
usefully employed. I am willing to hope he is yet reserved for more
usefulness.
"When I compare the perturbed state of Europe with the quiet of this
place I wish all my friends were here, provided they could find
sufficient employment to be happy; but if they be like myself they
must be content to be idle, except so far as they can make themselves
employment in their closets. My library and laboratory sufficiently
occupy me, and of common society I have as much as I want. A few more
_rational Christians_ to form a society would make this place a
paradise to me, and this would be wanting in many parts of England.
"It is a pleasure to be in a place that is continually and visibly
improving, and this is the case here to an astonishing degree. In
every year we find a very sensible difference, and in all probability
improvements of all kind will go on more rapidly than ever. Nature has
done everything that can be done for any place. Perhaps you have seen
the views of it taken by Miss Daich. They are not by any means too
flattering.
"Could I have my daughter here I should be happy indeed. But this, I
fear, is not likely to be accomplished, owing to the strange obstinacy
and prejudice of Mr Finch. Her trials must be very great, but she is
naturally cheerful, and has a strong sense of _religion_, which, I
hope, will support her. This, sufficiently impressed, will make us
equal to everything. Your kindness to her affects me much. _A friend
in need is a friend indeed._ Something will, I hope, be done for her
before my son returns, but what it can be I do not know. Her uncle has
some proposal to make to my son in her favour, but the obstinacy of Mr
Finch may defeat everything.
"You have obliged me very much by the exquisite little poem you sent
me. I hope you will add to the obligation by the communication of the
fragment on the 'Game of Chess,' or any other little piece you may
think proper to send me. You had no copy of your first poem to my
wife, or I should value _that_ above any other, and also the little
poem you wrote on the birth of Joseph.
"I shall always be very happy to hear from you; and, with my best
respects to Mr Barbauld, I am, dear Madam, yours sincerely,
J. Priestley.
"Northumberland, _Dec. 23, 1798_.
"Mrs Barbauld, Hampstead,
near London."
His son has given us a faithful picture of his closing years and of the
serenity of the evening of his life.
"For the last four years of his life he lived under an administration,
the principles and practice of which he perfectly approved, and with
Mr Jefferson, the head of that administration, he frequently
corresponded, and they had for each other a mutual regard and esteem.
He enjoyed the esteem of the wisest and best men in the country,
particularly at Philadelphia, where his religion and his politics did
not prevent his being kindly and cheerfully received by great numbers
of opposite opinions in both, who thus paid homage to his knowledge
and virtue."
In 1800 he put together his last scientific work, and the one which he
regarded as the crown of all his efforts, _viz._, his _Doctrine of
Phlogiston Established_. It can never be said of Priestley that he was
to one thing constant never: versatile as he was, and with an
extraordinary capacity for adaptation and change in matters of
philosophy and theological doctrine, he was ever constant to phlogiston.
During the spring of 1801, whilst on a visit to Philadelphia, he had an
attack of fever from which he never wholly recovered. It left him
predisposed to the fever and ague at that time prevalent at
Northumberland and he had a succession of attacks which weakened him
greatly. Nevertheless, his spirits were uniformly good and his
complacency and cheerfulness of manner never left him; and although he
was incapable of taking much physical exercise and had to give up
working in his garden, he spent a considerable amount of time in his
laboratory, experimenting with all the enthusiasm and eagerness of his
most active period with the newly-discovered pile of Volta, and sending
his results to _Nicholson's Journal_.
In 1802 he was enabled to send his _Church History_ to press, owing to
the action of his friends in England, who, unknown to him, had set a
subscription on foot sufficient to cover the expense of publication.
Although he was obviously failing in strength, owing to gastric
troubles, he continued to work on either in his study or in his
laboratory. He sent a couple of papers to the American Philosophical
Society on scientific subjects, and he published an essay on _Jesus and
Socrates Compared_. In the November of 1803 it was evident that his end
was approaching. Still he struggled on, hoping by careful attention to
his diet he might still see the spring. He told the physician who
attended him that if he could but patch him up for six months longer he
should be perfectly satisfied, as he should in that time be able to
complete the printing of his works. So precarious did he consider his
life that he took the precaution of transcribing one day in longhand
what he had composed the day before in shorthand, that he might by that
means leave the work complete as far as it went should he not live to
finish the whole.
With the beginning of 1804 his weakness had greatly increased. In his
diary for January 31 he notes:--"Ill all day--not able to speak for
nearly three hours." Still he rose, dressed and shaved himself (which he
never omitted doing every morning till within two days of his death),
went to his laboratory and lit his fire, but found his weakness so great
that he was obliged to get back to his study. During the next and
following days he was better, and was able to see to the correction of
his proof-sheets, but on February 4 he took to his bed, although he was
able to read and look over a sheet of proof and to check the Greek and
Hebrew quotations.
"In the course of the day," says his son, "he expressed his gratitude
in being permitted to die quietly in his family, without pain, with
every convenience and comfort he could wish for. He dwelt upon the
peculiarly happy situation in which it had pleased the Divine Being to
place him in life, and the great advantage he had enjoyed in the
acquaintance and friendship of some of the best and wisest men in the
age in which he lived, and the satisfaction he derived from having led
a useful as well as a happy life."
In the evening he had his grandchildren brought to his bedside, saying
it gave him great pleasure to see the little things kneel. After prayers
they wished him a good-night and he gave each his blessing, exhorting
them all to continue to love each other.
"And you, little thing," speaking to the youngest, "remember the hymn
you learned: 'Birds in their little nests agree.' I am going to sleep
as well as you; for death is only a good long sleep in the grave, and
we shall meet again."
He lingered through the night, and in the early morning requested his
son to take down some additions and alterations he wished inserted in
his proofs, dictating as clearly and distinctly as he had ever done in
his life. When these were read to him he said, "That is right; I have
now done." Shortly afterwards he put his hand to his face and breathed
his last so easy that those who were sitting close to him hardly
perceived he had passed away.
What was mortal of him now rests in a little hill-side cemetery
overlooking the beautiful river. The spot is marked with a simple
headstone on which is engraven--
To
the memory of the
Revd. Dr JOSEPH PRIESTLEY,
who departed this life
on the 6th Feby. 1804.
Anno. Ætatis LXXI.
"Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the
Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.
I will lay me down in peace and sleep till
I awake in the morning of the resurrection."