so that on this account, and likewise apprehending a storm from that quarter, we have just dropped anchor in Falmouth road, where we shall stay till to-morrow morning, and then sail or not, according as the wind shall be. On Wednesday evening we had a strong gale, which continued all night, and part of the next day. This made all the passengers very sick, and my wife and myself among them. I could eat nothing till supper; but the next night was calm, and we rose recruited, and all this day have been in very good spirits, but much disappointed at not being able to proceed on our voyage, when we had got further in three days, than the captain says he got in three weeks and five days the last voyage.

We begin to be acquainted with all our cabin and many of the steerage passengers, and like them very well. They are all well-behaved, and good company. The only woman cabin passenger is come from France, knows our friends there, and seems well acquainted with the politics of the country.

On the whole, I think we shall pass our time pretty well during the voyage. I have much time for reading, and shall be able to write. I am meditating a discourse on the causes of infidelity, led to it by reflections on that of Mr. Cooper, and other intelligent men.

I think I shall nearly read my New Testament through, before I get to New York, and I think I read it with more satisfaction than ever. Unbelievers, I am confident, do not read it, except with a predisposition to cavil.

A person waits for our letters, and therefore I am, in haste, yours and Mrs. Lindsey's most affectionately.*

* Orig. MS. From Dr. Priestley's last communication, before his final adieu to Europe, I cannot withhold the notice of an extraordinary assertion, by one who ought to have been better informed, that "the Royal Society declined admitting him to their meetings, and that he was obliged to withdraw his name from its list of members." Encyclopedia Edinensis. By "Dr. Brewster," (1830,) XVII. 154.

The Royal Society of that day has been sufficiently discredited among philosophic associations by the unworthy distinction of having seen the emigration and the decease of Priestley without an expression of regret for the loss which science had sustained, or any grateful recollections of an illus

Among the papers of the late Rev. Robert Edward Garnham, the intimate friend of Lindsey, and the occasional correspondent of Priestley, were found the following lines:

The savage, slavish Britain now no more
Deserves this patriot's steps to print her shore.
Despots and leagues and armies overthrown,
France would exult to claim him for her own.
Yet no! America, whose soul aspires
To warm her sons with Europe's brightest fires
Whose virtue, science, scorns a second prize,
Asks and obtains our Priestley from the skies.
Ye storms, ye monsters, which the seas contain,
Let him uninjured cross a placid main;

For never did your gentler breasts engage
Passions so fell as sacerdotal rage.t

Mr. Coleridge, in his third Effusion, introduces the second William Pitt as "yon dark scowler," who had become "a foul apostate from his father's fame.” In the fourth Effusion, he returns to the Premier as "that dark vizir," and thus appreciates the baneful influence of Church and State, which so largely contributed to this emigration:

Though rous'd by that dark Vizir, Riot rude
Have driv❜n our Priestley o'er the ocean swell;
Though Superstition, and her wolfish brood,
Bay his mild radiance, impotent and fell;

trious associate. Yet Dr. Brewster's story is evidently a fiction; and such a wrong as he has inadvertently supposed, even the church and the court, in their unholy alliance, could scarcely have perpetrated. On the contrary, Dr. Priestley's account of his latter relations with the Royal Society is well known to have been perfectly correct. See supra, p. 119.

See I. 403, note. Mr. Garnham died in 1802, aged 49. See a short Memoir by J. D., (Dr. Disney,) M. R. X. 13.

To these lines are prefixed, "March 4, 1794, recovering from gout." At the end is the following Latin version:

In J. Priestleium, ad Americam Migraturum.

Hunc, quo serva ferox, indigna Britannia cive,
Gallia, devictis patriâ donare tyrannis,

Gestiit: Europæ tamen æmula America, ne quid

Calth in his halls of brightness he shall dwell;
For lo! Religion, at his strong behest,
Starts with mild anger from the Papal spell,
And flings to earth her tinsel glittering vest,
Her mitred state, and cumbrous pomp unholy;
And Justice wakes to bid th' oppressor wail
Insulting aye the wrongs of patient Folly ;
And from her dark retreat by Wisdom won,
Meek Nature slowly lifts her matron veil

To smile with fondness on her gazing son.

In his "Religious Musings, written on Christmas Eve, 1794," the justly admired author resumes the subject, and has thus afforded me an appropriate conclusion of the present chapter. Nor, indeed, could Priestley have been described more agreeably to himself, or in a manner more becoming the distinction which his talents and character had acquired, than as in the train of Hartley, and amidst such an assemblage.

The mighty dead

Rise to new life, whoe'er from earliest time

With conscious zeal had urg'd Love's wondrous plan,
Coadjutors of God. To Milton's trump

The odorous groves of earth, reparadis'd,
Unbosom their glad echoes: inly hush'd,
Adoring Newton his serener eye

Raises to heaven: and he, of mortal kind
Wisest, he first who mark'd the ideal tribes
Down the fine fibres from the sentient brain
Roll subtly surging. Pressing on his steps,
Lo! Priestley there, patriot, and saint, and sage,
Whom that my fleshly eye hath never seen,
A childish pang of impotent regret
Hath thrill'd my heart. Him from his native land
Statesmen, blood-stain'd, and priests idolatrous,
By dark lies madd'ning the blind multitude,
Drove with vain hate: calm, pitying he retir'd,
And mus'd expectant on these promis'd years.*

Vinceret aut virtus nostra, aut sapientia, cœlo
Priestleium quæsivit, et exoravit ab alto.

At vos, o phocæ immanes, rabidæque procellæ,
Faustum reddite iter. Tandem præcordia vestra
Credere fas aliena sacerdotalibus ausis.

See "Poems on Various Subjects. By S. T. Coleridge, late of Jesus' College,

Cambridge, London, 1796," pp. 164, 165.

CHAPTER III.

(1794, 1795.)

MR. WILLIAM ALLUM, writing from "New York, June 6, 1794," to his friend, the late Rev. William Richards, of Lynn, says,

Your two letters were handed to me yesterday, and the day before (the 4th) I had the high satisfaction of bringing Dr. Priestley on shore.* He landed about five o'clock in the afternoon, and is received with a fervour of affection which no king ever yet received, much less deserved.

"June 1. The Sansom, the ship in which Dr. Priestley embarked from England, arrived at Sandy-Hook, where she waited for a pilot. Dr. and Mrs. Priestley landed (the 4th) at the battery, in as private a manner as possible, and went immediately to a lodging-house close by.

"It was soon known through the city, and next morning the principal inhabitants of New York came to pay their respects and congratulations; among others, Governor Clinton, Dr. Prevost, Bishop of New York; Mr. Osgood, late envoy to Great Britain; the heads of the college, most of the principal merchants, and deputations from the corporate body, and other societies." See "An Excursion to the United States in the Summer of 1794. By Henry Wansey, F. A. S," Ed. 2, (1798,) pp. 71, 72.

Dr. Priestley landed "a day too late" to meet a distinguished public functionary, with whom, in Dr. Price's connexion, he had been formerly well acquainted in England. Mr. Wansey mentions, "June 3, Mr. John Adams, the Vice-president," having "just arrived from Philadelphia in the stage." He adds,

Having a letter to deliver him from Dr. Priestley, I found him on board the packet, just sailing for Boston. He is a stout, hale, well-looking man, of grave deportment, and very plain in dress and person. He read the letter, and requested me to inform the doctor that he should be glad to see him at Boston, which he desired me to tell him he thought better calculated for him than any other part of America, and that he would find himself very well received if he should be inclined to settle there." Ibid. pp. 82, 240,

note.

I communicated to Dr. Foster that part of your letter respecting Dr. Priestley. He intends to pay him a visit; but the Baptists, as a body, have not liberality enough to do it. Several associated civil and political bodies have waited on him; and I have called a meeting of the English republicans for that purpose.*

The following letter, my friend Mr. Belsham very obligingly placed at my disposal several years since, to serve the present purpose. Mrs. Priestley has there agreeably related various particulars of the passage from England, which was unusually long, and of the reception which Dr. Priestley and his family had found at New York:

DEAR SIR,

New York, June 15, 1794. I Now sit down to fulfil my promise of writing to you, and am happy to inform you that we are both very well, and much pleased with New York, and the inhabitants, the little we have seen of it.

Our voyage at times was very unpleasant, from the roughness of the weather; but as variety is charming, we had all that could well be experienced on board, but shipwreck and famine. We had gales and squalls, and worked much of our way against head-sea for three days. We passed mountains of ice, larger than the captain had ever seen before; and kept watch two nights, fearing we might come too near some of them. One day we saw water-spouts great part of the day. I saw four at one time; but, happy for us, they kept a proper distance. We saw billows mountain-high, which by night appeared all on fire, and sometimes by night we were illumed around by the ship cutting her way through them.

One day we had a tremendous gale of wind, which took the ship in full sail. This was a very awful sight, and made great havoc with the sails, and carried away the top-sails. In this gale, which lasted about half an hour with great violence, I found myself more vexed than frightened, as I fancied it might

* Orig. MS. obligingly communicated by the late Dr. John Evans, as found among the papers of his friend Mr. Richards.