PRIESTLEY. 425 



quarters of the political world, and his admiration of 

 republican principles might be measured by his zeal for 

 the innovators of France, with the success of whose 

 arms he deemed the safety of freedom to be bound up- 

 When we read his answer to the offer of a seat in 1792, 

 and reflect that it was penned about three weeks after 

 the horrible massacres of September, the worst of the 

 atrocities which disfigured the Revolution, it moves 

 our wonder to find a Christian minister accompanying 

 his acknowledgment of the honour proposed, that of 

 being enrolled among the authors of the tragedy so 

 recently enacted, with no protest against the bloody 

 course then pursuing, no exception to the unquali- 

 fied admiration expressed of the youthful republic. 



In America we find his leanings are all against the 

 Federal party, and his censures of the great Chief of 

 the Union little concealed. He felt for the demo- 

 cratic party, the French alliance, the enemies of Eng- 

 lish partialities, and he regarded Washington as un- 

 grateful because he would not, from a recollection of 

 the services of France twenty years before to American 

 independence, consent to make America dependent 

 upon France. The indifferent reception which he met 

 with in society was probably owing to this party vio- 

 lence full as much as to the dislike of his Unitarian 

 opinions. But it must be added, that his temper was 

 so mild, and his manners so gentle, as to disarm his 

 most prejudiced adversaries whensoever they came into 

 his society. Many instances of this are given in his 

 correspondence, of which one may be cited. He hap- 

 pened to visit a friend whose wife received him in her 

 husband's absence, but feared to name him before a Cal- 



