1804.] Sketch of the Life and Charaéler of the late Dr. Prieftley, 361 
ment. This was rendered more intereft- 
ing to him by a conneétion with the new 
diffenting-college, eftablifhed at that place, 
His mind, by its native elafticity, reco- 
vered from the thock of his cruel loffes, 
and he refumed his ufual labours. 
This was, however, far from being 
a feafon of tranquillity. Parties ran 
high, and events were daily taking place 
calculated to agitate the mind, and in- 
{pire varied emotions’ of tumultuous ex- 
pectation. Dr. Prieftley, however he 
might be regarded by the friends of Go- 
vernment, had no reafon to entertain ap- 
prehenfions for his perfonal fafety on the 
part of authority; but he was ~confcious 
that he lay under a load of public odium 
and fufpicion, and he was perpetually ha- 
rafled by the petty malignity of bigotry. 
Having fo lately been the victim of a pa- 
roxyim of popular rage, he could not be 
perfectly eafy in the vicinity of a vat 
metropolis, where any fudden impulfe 
given to the tumultuous mafs micht bring 
irvefiftible deflruétion upon the heads of 
thofe who fhould be pointed out as -ob- 
jets of vengeance. It isnot, therefore, 
to be wondered at, that he looked towards 
an afylum in a country to which he had 
always fhewn a friendly attachment, and 
' which was in poffeiiion of all the bleffings 
of civil and-religious liberty. Some fa- 
mily reafons alfo enforced this choice of a 
“new fituation. He took leave of his na- 
tive country in 1794, and embarked for 
North America. 
the fincere regrets of a great number of 
venerating and affectionate friends and ad- 
mirers; and his departure, while cele. 
brated as a triumph by unteeling bigots, 
was lamented by the moderate and impar- 
tial, as a kind of ftigma on the country 
‘which, by its ill treatment, had expelled 
@ citizen whom it might enrol among its 
proudeft boafts. 
Northumberland, a town in the inland 
parts of the ttate of Pennfylvania, was the 
‘place in which he fixed his refidence. It 
was felected on account of the purchafe of 
Janded property in its neighbourhsod ; 
otherwife, its remotenefs from the fea- 
ports, its want of many of the comforts 
of civilized life, and of all the helps to 
ftudious and {cientific purfuit, rendered it 
a peculiarly undefirable abode for one of 
Dr. Priefiley’s habits and employments. 
The lofs of his excellent wife, and of a 
Very promifing fon, together with repeated 
aitacks of difeafe and other calamities, 
feverely tried the fortitude and refignation 
of this Chriftian philofopher ; -but he had 
within him what readered him fuperior to 
MonTHLY Mac, No, 414. 
He carried with him’ 
all external events, and pious ferenity 
was the fettled temper of his foul. 
In America -he was received, if not 
with the ardour of fympathy and admira- 
tion, yet with general refpe; nor were 
the angry contefts of party able laftingly 
to deprive him cf the efteem due to his 
charaéter. If he had any fanguine hopes 
of diffufing his religious principles over 
the new continent ; or if his friends ex- 
pected that the brilliancy of his philofo- 
phical reputation fhould place him in a 
highiy confpicuous light among a people 
yet in the infancy of mental culture, fuch 
expectations were certainly difappointed., 
He was, however, heard as a preacher by 
fome of the mof diftinguifhed members 
of congrefs ; and he was offered, but de- 
clined, the place of chemical profeffor at 
Philadelphia. It became-his great objec 
to enable himfelf in his retirement at 
Northumberland to renew that cour(le of 
philofophical experiment, and efpecially 
that train of theological writing, which 
had occupied fo many of the beft years 
of his life. By indefatigable pains he got 
together a valuable apparatus and well-fur- 
nifhed library, and cheerfully returned to. 
his former employments. By many new ex- 
periments on the conftitution of airs, he be- 
came more and more fixed in his belief of 
the phlogiftic theory, and in his oppofition 
to the new French chemical fyftem, of 
which he lived to be the fole opponent of 
note. ‘The refults of feveral of his en- 
Guiries on thefe topics were given, both in 
feparate publications, and in the: Ameri- 
can Philotophical Tranfagtions. A num- 
ber of pamphlets on different occafions of 
controverfy fell from his pen; and by his 
comparilons of the Jewifh with the Maho. 
metan and Hindoo religions, and the cha. 
racters of Chrift and Socrates, he endea- 
veured to ftrengthen the bulwarks of re- 
velation. ‘The liberal contributions of 
his friends in England enabled him to 
commence the printing of two extenfive 
works, on which he was zealoufly bent, 
a Church Hiftory, and an Expefirion of 
the Scriptures ; and through the progrefs 
of his final decline he unremittingly urged 
their completion. 
The circumftances attending the clofe 
of his ufeful and exemplary life are re- 
lated with fuch interefting fimplicity in 
the fojlowing article of the Philadelphia 
Gazette, that every one muff receive plea- 
fure from reading the narrative entire. | 
‘Since his illnefs at Philadelpiia, in 
the year 1801, he never regained his fer~ 
mer good flate of health. His complaint 
was panes indigeftion, and a difhculty 
pis 
OL 
