ing every day. We hope in another year to have a stage-coach. If Mr. Russell settle here, we shall have that convenience, and many others. His activity and public spirit are much wanted here; but if he be at Boston, he might as well be in England. His letter did not reach me in less than three weeks. The post here is very irregular and uncertain. Peace, and a consequent free intercourse with all parts of Europe, will do us the greatest service, and surely the war cannot last always. With every good wish to my country, and all that are in it, I am yours and Mrs. Lindsey's most affectionately.* DEAR SIR, To MR. RUSSELL.† Northumberland, Nov. 10, 1795. We were very glad to hear of your safe arrival at Boston, which we only did the last post, there having been no post the week before. I am happy to find you were so well pleased with your visit, though, in consequence of it, we can hardly expect to see you any more at Northumberland. In a variety of respects, as well as liberality, we must yield to New England; but a train of circumstances have brought me hither, and it is impossible for me to remove, and our difficulties are not so great but we may get through them, though not so soon as if we had had the aid of your activity, as well as experience and public spirit. I shall certainly regret the want of your society, but I shall hope to meet you sometimes at Philadelphia, and perhaps you may again pay us a short visit here. We have had a very sickly season, but so it has been through all this part of the continent. My wife suffered extremely. Harry, too, has had the ague, and is not yet well; but the damp weather being now over, the country in general begins to be healthy again. The society at Boston would certainly be most agreeable to me, but we cannot have every thing we wish for. I had three sons, as well as myself, to settle, and had not the means of doing * Orig. MS. VOL. II. + At Charles Vaughan's, Esq., Boston. Y it in any of the larger towns; and in the back country I do not know whether I could, on the whole, be better than where I am. However, I am satisfied with the situation, such as it is. I have leisure for my pursuits; and with this, even without society, I shall not be unhappy. I believe there is the hand of a good Providence in every thing, and therefore I hope I am come hither for good, and I would not make my own gratification my principal object. Besides, in any part of this country I should feel as a stranger, being too old to form new attachments; though, on this account, the loss of old ones, which I cannot replace, is more sensibly felt. But, sooner or later, this must take place with respect to all our most valued connexions in this world. The parting with Mr. Lindsey, and my other friends in England, has made these reflections familiar to me; and as I hope to meet all that I value again where we shall not separate any more, I feel less than I could have expected from that absence, which is only temporary. I should much rejoice to see Mr. B. Vaughan,* but it would be very unreasonable to expect it. He would enter into all my views, theological, philosophical, or political; but he must have a larger sphere than this place can furnish, and I am getting too old for him. With every good wish, in which we all join, to yourself and family, I am yours affectionately. P. S. I beg my best respects to Mr. Vaughan, Mr. Freeman, and Mr. R. Vaughan.† TO REV. T. LINDSEY.‡ DEAR FRIEND, Northumberland, Dec. 6, 1795. I SEND this by Dr. Young, who has been a physician in this place, but has left off practice, and will make the tour of a good part of Europe. A more friendly man I have hardly ever known; and I hope that, though we lose him for the present, we shall get him again, and that he will build and settle in this town. If, by means of your acquaintance, you can procure * See W. XXIV. 3. ↑ Orig. MS. ↑ Essex Street. him a sight of any thing he wishes to see, you will oblige me very much. I send by him a copy of a paper I am sending to the Philosophical Society at Philadelphia,* unless by landing at Liverpool he should see Birmingham before he reaches London, in which case he will forward this letter, without the paper, leaving it with my friends of the Lunar Society there. If you get it first, you will please to forward it to Mr. Galton the first convenient opportunity. It contains several new experiments, which must be thought of importance, especially with respect to the new French system, with which, though universally adopted, I see more and more reason to be dissatisfied. I have much more to do in my laboratory; but I am under the necessity of shutting up for the winter, as the frost will make it impossible to keep my water fit for use, without such provision as I cannot make, till I get my own laboratory prepared on purpose, when I hope to be able to work alike, winter and summer. I have materials for another paper, not yet composed, of which I shall take the first opportunity of sending you a copy. The difficulty, and what is more, the uncertainty of the conveyance of any thing across the Atlantic, is a great drawback from the satisfaction I might have in this place. I have just seen Mr. Fawcett's Poem on War,‡ in a copy sent to Mr. Cooper, from Mr. Hawkes, of Manchester. It discovers a most exuberant imagination, but so many words and phrases for one idea, I never saw before. Some parts are very affecting.§ It is not long since I received the copy of your edition of my answer to Paine. I read the preface with much emotion, from a sense of the friendship to me expressed in it. If I had laboured ten times more than I have, I should not have thought it too much for such a reward. I hope that before this you See supra, p. 315. + See supra, p. 210. "The Art of War." See N. A. Reg. XVI. [279]. § See "War Elegy, better suited to our circumstances than the War Elegies of Tyrtæus." Ibid. p. [187]. will have got my "Observations on the Increase of Infidelity," as I have seat copies of it various ways. It is a subject now very interesting, and much more might be observed with respect to it. As it must have engaged your attention, and that of Mr. Belsham, I cannot help wishing you would reprint that tract, with such additions, &c., as may occur to you. I have now completely transcribed, as well as composed, the continuation of my Church History, to the Reformation; but I have yet much to do in revising it, and comparing different accounts. I have also to draw up an account of writers in all the periods, and a short sketch of political events, so that I think it advisable to defer the printing of the work a year longer. The farther I advance, the more convinced I am of the importance of the work, and I shall spare no pains to make it as perfect as I can. I must at present, however, suspend all farther progress in this work, for the sake of preparing some discourses, to deliver in Philadelphia. They will relate chiefly to the evidences of revelation, and I must contrive to make them different from any that I have printed. There is something very remarkable in the progress of infidelity in this country, but I am more astonished with respect to some particular persons in England, and especially Unitarians. Others, however, at least a sufficient number, will rise up, better qualified to fill the places of those whose apostacy we regret the most. Mr. Hawkes says there are many Unitarians in the academy at Northampton,* and others may arise where we least expect them. In the mean time, the apostacy of some will try and purify and increase the zeal of others. This state of things will also produce better and clearer defences of revelation than any we have yet seen; and the opponents will be more effectually confounded by the reason to which they appeal; and, what is of more consequence, the superiority of the truly Christian character, above that of unbelievers, will be more apparent to the truly serious and discerning. Christianity will lose no • Then under the superintendence of the late Rev. John Horsey. See M. R. VII. 732. thing by the apostacy of the luke-warm, the ill-informed, or the worldly-minded. Since I wrote the above we have heard from Miss Russells, in which they say nothing of Boston, but enlarge much in praise of Middletown, in Connecticut, from which they write, so that they seem disposed to settle there. I shall, however, meet him in Philadelphia. I rejoice to hear so good an account of Messrs. Palmer and Muir,* and hope their exile will serve for the furtherance of the gospel, and the cause of liberty. I hope that you or Mr. Johnson pay my subscription of five guineas annually to them, and two to Mr. Winterbotham.† I also wish Mr. Johnson will send me all his publications. I see by the papers that he is very industrious. Happily, these persecutions are now over. A person lately from England says, nothing hurt the interest of the Court so much as the issue of those prosecutions, from which so much was expected, and nothing produced. Still, howeve, I fear that peace is at a great distance. The landing of so many British troops on the coast of France looks like a determination to push the war to all extremites. With you, the fate of that measure, which we have but just heard of, is already known. I hope you have, long before this, received the letter that contained one for Mrs. Rayner, and also, that the Duke of Grafton and Mr. Tayleur have received those I wrote to them. Mrs. P. is recovered from a very long illness, and we are all tolerably well.‡ TO REV. R. SCOLEFIELD.S DEAR FRIEND, THAT I have not written to you, as well as to my other friends, before this time, you will not, I am sure, ascribe to any disrespect, but a presumption that you would, in some way or other, hear every thing concerning me that was known to others, and it did not seem very material by what channel • See supra, pp. 221, 226 note *. † See supru, p. 206. § Birmingham. |