“Through life,” says her son, “she had been truly a helpmeet for him; supporting him under all his trials and sufferings with a constancy and perseverance truly praiseworthy, and who, as he himself, in noting the event in his diary, justly observes, ‘was of a noble and generous mind, and cared much for others and little for herself through life.’” At about this period he preached and printed another of his defences of Unitarianism and completed his _Church History_, and began the compilation of his last treatise in defence of phlogiston. He spent the spring of 1796 in Philadelphia, where he delivered a series of lectures on the evidences of revelation to crowded audiences, including most of the members of the United States Congress, at that time sitting in Philadelphia, and of the executive officers of the Government. He delivered a second series on the same subject in the spring of the following year, but with less success, partly owing, his son imagines, to the novelty of the thing having passed away, and partly from prejudices that began to be excited against him on account of his supposed political principles. In reality Priestley took even less interest in the politics of America than he had done in those of his own country. He seldom read the debates in Congress, and beyond Adams and Jefferson he knew few of the leading politicians. He never attended a political meeting or took part directly or indirectly in an election, and excepting an article in a newspaper called “Aurora,” or “Maxims of Political Arithmetic,” and signed “A Quaker in Politics,” he wrote nothing on the subject of politics. At that period political feeling ran high and politics were the one subject of conversation, and to some extent, therefore, he could not escape their discussion, but it was noticed that he always argued on the side of liberty. As regards British politics his speculations went no further than a reform in Parliament, such as that which was accomplished less than thirty years after his death. He had no desire to see changed the constitution of the kingdom as vested in King, Lords and Commons. “He used frequently to say,” says his son, “and it was said of him, that though he was an Unitarian in religion he was in that country a Trinitarian in politics. When he came to America he found reason to change his opinions, and he became a decided friend to the general principles and practice of a completely representative Government, founded upon universal suffrage, and excluding hereditary privileges, as it exists in this country. This change was naturally produced by observing the ease and happiness with which the people lived, and the unexampled prosperity of the country.” But in his feelings he was still an Englishman. He never was naturalised, saying that as he had been born and had lived an Englishman he would die one, let what might be the consequence.