Priestley in America Part 2

A welcome to this country from my fellow labourers in the instruction of youth, is, I a.s.sure you, peculiarly grateful to me.

Cla.s.ses of men, as well as individuals, are apt to form too high ideas of their own importance; but certainly one of the most important is, that which contributes so much as ours do to the c.u.mmunication of useful knowledge, as forming the characters of men, thereby fitting them for their several stations in society.

In some form or other this has been my employment and delight; and my princ.i.p.al object in flying for an asylum to this country, "a land," as I hope you justly term it, "of virtuous simplicity, and a recess from the intriguing politics, and vicious refinements of the European world," is that I may, without molestation, pursue my favourite studies. And if I had an opportunity of making choice of an employment for what remains of active exertion in life, it would be one in which I should as I hope I have hitherto done, contribute with you, to advance the cause of science, of virtue, and of religion.

Further, The Medical Society of the State of New York through Dr. John Charlton, its President, said:

PERMIT us, Sir, to wait upon you with an offering of our sincere congratulations, on your safe arrival, with your lady and family in this happy country, and to express our real joy, in receiving among us, a gentleman, whose labours have contributed so much to the diffusion and establishment of civil and religious liberty, and whose deep researches into the true principles of natural philosophy, have derived so much improvement and real benefit, not only to the sciences of chemistry and medicine, but to various other arts, all of which are necessary to the ornament and utility of human life.

May you, Sir, possess and enjoy, here, uninterrupted contentment and happiness, and may your valuable life be continued a farther blessing to mankind.

And in his answer Dr. Priestley remarked:

I THINK myself greatly honoured in being congratulated on my arrival in this country by a Society of persons whose studies bear some relation to my own. To continue, without fear of molestation, on account of the most open profession of any sentiments, civil or religious, those pursuits which you are sensible have for their object the advantage of all mankind, (being, as you justly observe, "necessary to the ornament and utility of human life") is my princ.i.p.al motive for leaving a country in which that tranquility and sense of security which scientificial pursuits require, cannot be had; and I am happy to find here, persons who are engaged in the same pursuits, and who have the just sense that you discover of their truly enviable situation.

As a climax to greetings extended in the City of New York, The Republican Natives of Great Britain and Ireland resident in that city said,

WE, the Republican natives of Great Britain and Ireland, resident in the city of New York, embrace, with the highest satisfaction, the opportunity which your arrival in this city presents, of bearing our testimony to your character and virtue and of expressing our joy that you come among us in circ.u.mstances of such good health and spirits.

We have beheld with the keenest sensibility, the unparallelled persecutions which attended you in your native country, and have sympathized with you under all their variety and extent. In the firm hope, that you are now completely removed from the effects of every species of intolerance, we most sincerely congratulate you.

After a fruitless opposition to a corrupt and tyrannical government, many of us have, like you, sought freedom and protection in the United States of America; but to this we have all been princ.i.p.ally induced, from the full persuasion, that a republican representative government, was not merely best adapted to promote human happiness, but that it is the only rational system worthy the wisdom of man to project, or to which his reason should a.s.sent.

Partic.i.p.ating in the many blessings which the government of this country is calculated to insure, we are happy in giving it this proof of our respectful attachment:--We are only grieved, that a system of such beauty and excellence, should be at all tarnished by the existence of slavery in any form; but as friends to the Equal Rights of Man, we must be permitted to say, that we wish these Rights extended to every human being, be his complexion what it may. We, however, look forward with pleasing antic.i.p.ation to a yet more perfect state of society; and, from that love of liberty which forms so distinguishing a trait in American character, are taught to hope that this last--this worse disgrace to a free government, will finally and forever be done away.

While we look back on our native country with emotions of pity and indignation at the outrages which humanity has sustained in the persons of the virtuous Muir, and his patriotic a.s.sociates; and deeply lament the fatal apathy into which our countrymen have fallen; we desire to be thankful to the Great Author of our being that we are in America, and that it has pleased Him, in his Wise Providence, to make the United States an asylum not only from the immediate tyranny of the British Government, but also from those impending calamities, which its increasing despotism and multiplied iniquities, must infallibly bring down on a deluded and oppressed people.

Accept, Sir, of our affectionate and best wishes for a long continuance of your health and happiness.

The answer of the aged philosopher to this address was:

I think myself peculiarly happy in finding in this country so many persons of sentiments similar to my own, some of whom have probably left Great Britain or Ireland on the same account, and to be so cheerfully welcomed by them on my arrival. You have already had experience of the difference between the governments of the two countries, and I doubt not, have seen sufficient reason to give the decided preference that you do to that of this. There all liberty of speech and of the press as far as politics are concerned, is at an end, and a spirit of intolerance in matters of religion is almost as high as in the time of the Stuarts. Here, having no countenance from government, whatever may remain of this spirit, from the ignorance and consequent bigotry, of former times, it may be expected soon to die away; and on all subjects whatever, every man enjoys invaluable liberty of speaking and writing whatever he pleases.

The wisdom and happiness of Republican governments and the evils resulting from hereditary monarchical ones, cannot appear in a stronger light to you than they do to me. We need only look to the present state of Europe and of America, to be fully satisfied in this respect. The former will easily reform themselves, and among other improvements, I am persuaded, will be the removal of that vestige of servitude to which you allude, as it so ill accords with the spirit of equal liberty, from which the rest of the system has flowed; whereas no material reformation of the many abuses to which the latter are subject, it is to be feared, can be made without violence and confusion.

I congratulate you, gentlemen, as you do me, on our arrival in a country in which men who wish well to their fellow citizens, and use their best endeavours to render them the most important services, men who are an honour to human nature and to any country, are in no danger of being treated like the worst felons, as is now the case in Great Britain.

Happy should I think myself in joining with you in welcoming to this country every friend of liberty, who is exposed to danger from the tyranny of the British Government, and who, while they continue under it, must expect to share in those calamities, which its present infatuation must, sooner or later, bring upon it. But let us all join in supplications to the Great Parent of the Universe, that for the sake of the many excellent characters in our native country its government may be reformed, and the judgments impending over it prevented.

The hearty reception accorded Dr. Priestley met in due course with a cruel attack upon him by William Cobbett, known under the pen-name of Peter Porcupine, an Englishman, who after arrival in this country enjoyed a rather prosperous life by formulating scurrilous literature--attacks upon men of prominence, stars shining brightly in the human firmament.

An old paper, the _Argus_, for the year 1796, said of this Peter Porcupine:

When this political caterpillar was crawling about at St. John's, Nova Scotia, in support of his Britannic Majesty's glorious cause, against the United States, and holding the rank of serjeant major in the 54th regiment, then quartered in that land, "flowing with milk and honey," and GRINDSTONES, and commanded by Colonel Bruce; it was customary for some of the officers to hire out the soldiers to the country people, instead of keeping them to military duty, and to pocket the money themselves. Peter found he could make a _speck_ out of this, and therefore kept a watchful eye over the sins of his superiors. When the regiment was recalled and had returned to England--Peter, brimful of amor patriae, was about to prefer a complaint against the officers, when they came down with a round sum of the ready rino, and a promise of his discharge, in case of secrecy.--This so staggered our incorruptible and independent hero and quill driver, that he agreed to the terms, received that very honorable discharge, mentioned with so much emphasis, in the history of his important life--got cash enough to come to America, by circuitous route and to set himself up with the necessary implements of scandal and abuse.

This flea, this spider, this corporal, has dared to point his impotent spleen at the memory of that ill.u.s.trious patriot, statesman and philosopher, Benjamin Franklin.

Let the buzzing insect reflect on this truth--that

"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 ma.s.sacres 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s 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 munic.i.p.ality.

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 a.s.sociates:

THE American Philosophical Society, held at Philadelphia for promoting useful knowledge, offer you their sincere congratulations on your safe arrival in this country. a.s.sociated 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 ill.u.s.trious member of this inst.i.tution: Your colleagues antic.i.p.ate 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 inst.i.tution; 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.