FROM THE COMMITTEE OF THE TAMMANY SOCIETY.

A NUMEROUS body of freemen, who associate to cultivate among them the love of liberty, and the enjoyment of the happy republican government under which they live, and who, for several years, have been known in this city by the name of Tammany Society, have deputed us a committee, to express to you their pleasure and congratulations on your safe arrival in this country. Their venerable ancestors escaped, as you have done, from the persecutions of intolerance, bigotry, and despotism; and they would deem themselves an unworthy progeny were they not highly interested in your safety and happiness.

It is not alone because your various useful publications evince a life devoted to literature, and the industrious pursuit of knowledge; not only because your numerous discoveries in nature are so efficient to the progression of human happiness; but they have long known you to be the friend of mankind; and, in defiance of calumny and malice, an asserter of the rights of conscience, and the champion of civil and religious liberty.

They have learned, with regret and indignation, the abandoned proceedings of those spoilers who destroyed your house and goods, ruined your philosophical apparatus and library, committed to the flames your manuscripts, pryed into the secrets of your private papers, and, in their barbarian fury, put your life itself in danger. They heard you also, with exalted benevolence, return unto them "blessings for curses ;" and while you thus exemplified the undaunted integrity of the patriot, the mild and forbearing virtues of the Christian, they hailed you victor in this magnanimous triumph over your enemies.

You have fled from the rude arm of violence, from the flames of bigotry, from the rod of lawless power; and you shall find refuge in the bosom of freedom, of peace, and of Americans.

You have left your native land, a country doubtless ever dear to you; a country for whose improvement in virtue and knowledge you have long disinterestedly laboured; for which its rewards are ingratitude, injustice, and banishment; a coun

try, although now presenting a prospect frightful to the eye of humanity, yet once the nurse of science, of arts, of heroes, and of freemen; a country which, although at present apparently self-devoted to destruction, we fondly hope may yet tread back the steps of infamy and ruin, and once more rise conspicuous among the free nations of the earth.

In this advanced period of your life, when nature demands the sweets of tranquillity, you have been constrained to encounter the tempestuous deep, to risk disappointed prospects in a foreign land, to give up the satisfaction of domestic quiet, to tear yourself from the friends of your youth, from a numerous acquaintance who revere and love you, and will long deplore your loss.

We enter, Sir, with emotion and sympathy into the numerous sacrifices you must have made to an undertaking which so eminently exhibits our country as an asylum for the persecuted and oppressed, and into those regretful sensibilities your heart experienced when the shores of your native land were lessening to your view.

Alive to the impressions of this occasion, we give you a warm and hearty welcome into these United States; we trust a country worthy of you, where Providence has unfolded a scene as new as it is august, as felicitating as it is unexampled. The enjoyment of liberty, with but one disgraceful exception, pervades every class of citizens. A catholic and sincere spirit of toleration regulates society, which rises into zeal when the sacred rights of humanity are invaded. And there exists a sentiment of free and candid inquiry, which disdains the shackles of tradition, promising a rich harvest of improvement, and the glorious triumph of truth.

We hope, Sir, that the great Being, whose laws and works you have made the study of your life, will smile upon and bless you, restore you to every domestic and philosophical enjoyment, prosper you in every undertaking beneficial to mankind, render you, as you have been of your own, the ornament of this country, and crown you at last with immortal felicity and honour.*

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE TAMMANY SOCIETY.

New York, June 5, 1794.

GENTLEMEN, I THINK myself greatly honoured, flying, as I do, from illtreatment in my native country, on account of my attachment to the cause of civil and religious liberty, to be received with the congratulations of "a society of freemen, associated to culvate the love of liberty, and the enjoyment of a happy republican government."

Happy would our venerable ancestors, as you justly call them, have been to have found America such a retreat for them as it is to me, when they were driven hither; but happy has it proved to me, and happy will it be for the world, that, in the wise and benevolent order of Providence, abuses of power are ever destructive of itself, and favourable to liberty. Their strenuous exertions, and yours, now give me that asylum which, at my time of life, is peculiarly grateful to me, who only wish to continue, unmolested, those pursuits of various literature, to which, without having ever entered into any political connexions, my life has been devoted.

I join you in viewing, with regret, the unfavourable prospect of Great Britain, formerly, as you say, the nurse of science and of freemen; and wish, with you, that the unhappy delusion that country is now under may soon vanish, and that, whatever be the form of its government, it may vie with this country in every thing that is favourable to the best interests of mankind, and join with you in removing that only disgraceful circumstance, which you justly acknowledge to be an exception to the enjoyment of equal liberty among yourselves. That the great Being, whose providence extends alike to all the human race, and to whose disposal I cheerfully commit myself, may establish whatever is good, and remove whatever is imperfect from your government, and from every government in the known world, is the earnest prayer of, gentlemen, your respectful, humble servant.*

"The Committee appointed by the Tammany Society, to address their congratulations, &c., to the Rev. Joseph Priestley, having reported their

TO REV. T. LINDSEY.*

DEAR FRIEND,

New York, June 6, 1794.

I HOPE you received the letters I wrote from Gravesend, Deal, and Falmouth. I now write from New York, where we are safely arrived, after a passage of eight weeks and a day, owing to our having had none but westerly winds, after we got clear of the channel, till the last fortnight. We also found the coast covered with a thick fog, very unusual at this time of the year, so that we were three days before we could get into the bay, after we reached the coast.

We had an excellent ship; but the captain was not the man he had been represented to me. He swore much, and was given to liquor, and the crew very disorderly. However, he made a point of behaving in his best manner to us, and is naturally very generous and good-natured. Unfortunately, the mate and he did not agree, and no care had been taken of the water casks, so that the steerage passengers suffered much in consequence of it, and we had many complaints; and if the voyage had been longer, the consequences might have been serious.

Our society in the cabin was agreeable enough, though the majority were aristocratically inclined; but all in the steerage were zealous republicans, and persons of good character, and several of good property. In the steerage, also, there was more religion than in the cabin, but they were universally Calvinists, though the majority very moderate, as you will suppose from their applying to me to perform divine service to them, which I did with much satisfaction, when the weather and other circumstances would permit, several in the cabin joining us, though some of them were unbelievers, but for want of information. This is the case with Mr. Lyon, a most excellent man, who is now reading my Sermons on the Evidences of Revelation, and, I hope, to good purpose. He, address, and his answer thereto, and that the first opportunity had been taken to wait on him, agreeable to their direction, the society resolved, unanimously, the publication of their report." Ibid. p. 12.

* Essex Street.

like thousands of others, told me that he was so much disgusted with the doctrines of the Church of England, especially the Trinity, that he considered the whole business as an imposition, without farther inquiry.

The confinement in the ship would not have been disagreeable if I could have written with convenience, but I could do little more than read. I read the whole of the Greek Testament, and the Hebrew Bible as far as the first Book of Samuel; and, I think, with more satisfaction than ever. I also read through Hartley's second volume, and, for amusement, I had several books of voyages, and Ovid's Metamorphoses, which I read through. I always admired his Latin versification. If I had a Virgil, I should have read him through, too. I read a great deal of Buchanan's poems, and some of Petrarch de remediis, and Erasmus's Dialogues; also Peter Pindar's poems, which Mr. Lyon had with him, and which pleased me much more than I expected. He is Paine in verse. Though it was particularly inconvenient to write long hand, I composed about as much as will make two sermons on the causes of infidelity, which will make a proper addition to the volume of my discourses. If I do not print them here, I will send you a copy. Now that I have access to the first volume of Hartley, in the fine edition Mrs. Lindsey gave me, I think I can improve what I wrote. The second volume I had in the ship, was an odd volume of the set that was destroyed in the riot.

We had many things to amuse us on the passage; as the sight of some fine mountains of ice; water-spouts, which are very uncommon in those seas; flying fishes, porpoises, whales, and sharks, of which we caught one; luminous sea-water, &c. I also amused myself with trying the heat of the water at different depths, and made other observations, which suggest various experiments, which I shall prosecute whenever I get my apparatus at liberty. We had some very stormy weather, and one gust of wind as sudden and violent as, perhaps, was ever known. If it had not been for the passengers, many of the sails had been lost.

I had not much sea-sickness; but, owing to our wretched