SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF BE, PRIESTLEY. 487 



single person, it can never be supposed that the resignation is obliga- 

 tory on their posterity, because it is manifestly contrary to the good 

 of the whole that it should be so." From this first principle he de- 

 duces all his political maxims. Kings, senators, and nobles, are mere- 

 ly the servants of the public ; and, when they abuse their power, in the 

 people lies the right of deposing and consequently of punishing them. 

 He examines the expediency of hereditary sovereignty, of hereditary 

 rank and privileges, of the duration of Parliament, and of the right 

 of voting, with an evident tendency to democratic principles. Though 

 he approved of a republic in the abstract, yet, considering the preju- 

 dices and habits of the people of Great Britain, he laid it down as a 

 principle that their present form of government was best suited to 

 them. He was an enemy to all violent reforms, and thought that the 

 change ought to be brought about gradually and peaceably. 



These princij)les excited no alarm and drew but little attention at 

 the time of their publication in 1788, but the perturbation occasioned 

 throughout Europe by the French Revolution was very conspicuous in 

 England, and it was during the state of public irritability upon that 

 subject that Dr. Priestley's teachings were made a source of public 

 alarm. Opposed to a state church, liberal in religion, and advocating 

 freedom of thought and liberty of discussion, he was represented as 

 the enemy of the government and the foe of religion. The French 

 recognized his eminent position as a champion of liberal thought, and 

 he was honored by being made a citizen of France, and a member of 

 the Assembly. This made him in a high degree obnoxious at home, 

 and was laid hold of by his antagonists to convince the people that he 

 was an enemy to his country, that he had abjured his rights as an 

 Englishman, and had adopted the principles of the hereditary enemies 

 of Great Britain. The clergy of the English Church, who began 

 about this time to be alarmed for their establishment, of which Dr. 

 Priestley was the open enemy, were particularly active ; the press 

 teemed with their denunciations of him, and the minds of their hearers 

 were inflamed against him. This vicious state of feeling at length 

 broke bounds and issued in violence. On the day of the anniversary of 

 the French Revolution, in 1791, there was a riot in Birmingham, in 

 which Dr. Priestley's meeting-house and dwelling-house were burned, 

 his library and apparatus destroyed, and many manuscripts, the fruits 

 of years of industry, were consumed in the conflagration. The houses 

 of several of his friends shared the same fate, and his son was only 

 saved from death by the care of a friend who concealed him for several 

 days. Dr. Priestley was obliged to make his escape to London, and a 

 seat was taken for him in the mail-coach under a borrowed name. 

 Such was the ferment against him that it was believed he would not 

 have been safe anywhere else, and his friends would not allow him for 

 several weeks to walk through the streets. He was invited to Hack- 

 ney to succeed the celebrated Unitarian clergyman Dr. Price. He ac- 



