The _Appeal_ evidently cost Priestley much pains in its composition. Part of it was sent in sheets to his intimate friends in Birmingham, notably Dr Withering, Mr Galton and Mr Russell, who conferred together and with Captain Keir as to the advisability of publishing it. Like him they were sensible that it would certainly more exasperate his enemies. Captain Keir endeavoured to dissuade him from its publication, at least in its proposed form, saying that it would “irritate his professed enemies, and furnish them with a new source of abuse,” and that he feared that “Government would become more remiss in prosecuting the magistrates and in protecting the Dissenters in future if they should meet with any passage that would give them offence.” On learning the opinion of his friends Priestley wrote to Wedgwood:— “I have desired the printer to send you a copy of my _Appeal_ on the subject of the riots, in order to have your opinion and advice with respect to publishing of it. Several of my friends in Birmingham, viz., Dr Withering, Mr Keir and Mr Galton, think that it had better be suppressed, or published with many alterations by way of softening. Others, and especially my friends here, are for its speedy publication, or about the time of the meeting of Parliament. In this state of suspense I beg your perusal of it and your free opinion. I think that if I write at all it should not be with less spirit than I have usually shown, and that there is nothing more violent or offensive in _this_ than in several of my preaching publications. But as others are interested in the event of this publication I am willing to be advised by them.” On August 24, 1791, at the Warwick Assizes, John Green, John Clifton and Bartholomew Fisher were indicted for that they, with one William Jones, at large, with others, to the number of fifty and more, did, on the 15th of July, unlawfully and riotously assemble and with force of arms begin to pull down the dwelling-house of Joseph Priestley, LL.D. The jury found Green and Fisher guilty and Clifton not guilty. John Stokes, for beginning to pull down the Old Meeting-House in Birmingham, was acquitted, on account of the defects in the indictment. The following was Baron Perryn’s sentence:— “Prisoners, you have been convicted by very human and attentive juries of the enormous crimes of setting fire to and destroying the houses and property of your fellow-subjects in a manner as wanton as it was unprovoked. Your cry of ‘Church and King!’ was nothing but a pretext to commit depredation and robbery. The Law and Constitution is a sufficient shield to protect the Church and the sacred person of His Majesty and all his good subjects in their lives and property. “At the same time the Law possesses sufficient energy and vigour to make examples of those bad citizens who wickedly and wantonly violate it.