Correspondence of Lient.-Col. J. L. Philips. 39 



known materialist, was elected an honorary member of the 

 Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1783, 

 and an ordinary member in 1785. In 1792 he and James 

 Watt, Junr., being in France on private business, repre- 

 sented the Manchester Constitutional Society as delegates 

 to the Jacobin Club. This Watt, it may be observed, who 

 was co-secretary with Dr. Ferriar of the Manchester 

 Literary and Philosophical Society in 1789 and 1790, 

 was the son of the Watt of steam-engine fame, and 

 was apparently agent for his father's business in Man- 

 chester. Cooper and Watt learned the secret of making 

 chlorine from common salt while in France, and the former 

 subsequently settled in Manchester as a bleacher and 

 calico-printer. Later on he followed his friend Priestley to 

 America, and became a judge in Pennsylvania in 1806. 

 In 181 1 he was appointed Professor of Mineralogy and 

 Chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania, and at a later 

 date Professor of Chemistry in South Carolina College. It 

 will be observed that the letter to Philips was written while 

 he was still filling the position of judge, and that it describes 

 his entering on the study of mineralogy, of which he became 

 a teacher in the succeeding year. The allusion to the father 

 of Colonel Philips helps to complete our biographical sketch. 

 The Tom Kershaw referred to is frequently mentioned in 

 the letters. Like Philips he was a member of the Society in 

 its first year (1781), and was also on the "Committee of 

 Papers." He was the author of a paper published in the 

 first volume of ths Memoirs " On the Comparative Merit 

 of the Ancients and the Moderns with Respect to the 

 Imitative Arts." Cooper, who was a Vice-President of the 

 Society from 1786 to 1791, also contributed to the Memoirs. 

 It is worthy of note that several of Colonel Philips's 

 brothers proceeded to Pennsylvania ; Henry died in Phila- 

 delphia in 1800, and Hardman Philips, resident at Philips- 

 burg, died in 1854. Another brother, Nathaniel George, 



