On the way out he wrote some _Observations on the Cause of the Present Prevalence of Infidelity_, which he prefixed to a new edition of his _Letters to the Philosophers and Politicians of France_. Alas! one of the most distinguished of those philosophers and politicians was even then no more. Coffinhal had pronounced his judgment, declaring “the Republic has no need of men of science,” and whilst Priestley was on the high seas his great protagonist, Lavoisier, more unfortunate even than he, met his death on the scaffold. “Such was the treatment bestowed upon the best of their citizens by two nations which considered themselves as without exception the most civilised and enlightened in the world!” Priestley was well received in New York, many people meeting him on landing, and he was presented with addresses of welcome from various societies. After a stay of about a fortnight he proceeded to Philadelphia and received an address from the American Philosophical Society, and by a unanimous vote of the trustees was offered the Professorship of Chemistry in the University of Philadelphia. In the following July, in order to escape from the heat of the city, he moved to Northumberland, a town about a hundred and thirty miles north-west of Philadelphia and situated at the confluence of the north-east and west branches of the Susquehanna, near to which place his eldest son, together with certain other persons, mainly Englishmen, projected a settlement. Priestley himself had no pecuniary interest, as has been stated, in the undertaking, and he was not consulted in its formation, nor had he even decided to join it if carried into effect. We learn from his son’s account that the scheme of settlement was not to be confined to any particular class or character of men, religious or political. It was set on foot to be, as it were, a rallying point for the English, who were at that period emigrating to America in great numbers, and who, it was thought, would be more happy in society of the kind they had been accustomed to than they would be if dispersed through the whole of the States.