PRIESTLEY. 85 



Unitarian opinions, to which the parties were all so 

 zealously attached. 



He settled at Northumberland, in an uncleared dis- 

 trict, where he purchased three hundred acres of land ; 

 and his youngest son, Henry, then a very fine young man 

 of eighteen, devoted himself to the clearing and culti- 

 vating this woodland spot, working with his labourers 

 and sharing their toils. The father himself partook of 

 this labour for two or three hours daily. On Sundays 

 he frequently preached, and when he visited Phila- 

 delphia he always did so. He devoted the rest of his 

 time to his works, particularly his * Church History;' 

 and he wrote answers to Paine and Volney. He was 

 much obstructed in his philosophical pursuits by the 

 want of proper accommodation for his apparatus, and 

 he only wrote three tracts on chemical subjects during 

 the ten years of his residence in America; two of 

 which were merely arguments on phlogiston, and the 

 third alone recorded any experiments ; it was written 

 eight years before his death. 



At the end of 1795 he suffered a heavy affliction in 

 the death of his son Henry, after a few days' illness ; 

 and in ten months more he also lost his wife. These 

 blows, though he felt their weight, did not at all crush 

 him ; his resignation was exemplary ; and his steady, 

 enthusiastic faith in Revelation gave him a certain 

 hope of meeting, before many years should elapse, with 

 those whom he had lost. Indeed, his letters clearly 

 show that he regarded the sundering of these ties far 

 less attentively than their restoration. A few days 

 after his son's death he writes to his most intimate 

 friend and constant correspondent, Theophilus Lindsay, 

 recounting the particulars of his loss, and he adds that 

 he is composing three discourses on Revelation against 

 modern unbelievers. The letter next year announcing 

 his wife's death, begins with saying to the same friend 

 how much he stands in need of his sympathy, and 

 goes on to add, "This day I bury my wife; she died 



