In this situation I found myself as happy as I had been at Birmingham, and contrary to general expectation, I opened my lectures to young persons with great success, being attended by many from London; and though I lost some of the hearers, I left the congregation in a better situation than that in which I found it. On the whole, I spent my time even more happily at Hackney than ever I had done before; having every advantage for my philosophical and theological studies, in some respect superior to what I had enjoyed at Birmingham, especially from my easy access to Mr. Lindsey, and my frequent intercourse with Mr. Belsham, professor of divinity in the New College, near which I lived. Never, on this side the grave, do I expect to enjoy myself so much as I did by the fire side of Mr. Lindsey, conversing with him and Mrs. Lindsey on theological and other subjects, or in my frequent walks with Mr. Belsham, whose views of most important subjects were, like Mr. Lindsey’s, the same with my own. I found, however, my society much restricted with respect to my philosophical acquaintance; most of the members of the Royal Society shunning me on account of my religious or political opinions, so that I at length withdrew myself from them, and gave my reasons for so doing in the Preface to my _Observations and Experiments on the generation of air from water_, which I published at Hackney. For, with the assistance of my friends, I had in a great measure replaced my Apparatus, and had resumed my experiments, though after the loss of near two years. Living in the neighbourhood of the New College, I voluntarily undertook to deliver the lectures to the pupils on the subject of _History and General policy_, which I had composed at Warrington, and also on _Experimental Philosophy and Chemistry_, the _Heads_ of which I drew up for this purpose, and afterwards published. In being useful to this Institution I found a source of considerable satisfaction to myself. Indeed, I have always had a high degree of enjoyment in lecturing to young persons, though more on theological subjects than on any other. After the riots in Birmingham I wrote _an Appeal to the Public_ on the subject, and that being replied to by the clergy of the place, I wrote a _second part_, to which, though they had pledged themselves to do it, they made no reply; so that, in fact the criminality of the magistrates, and other principal High-church men at Birmingham, in promoting the riot, remains acknowledged. Indeed, many circumstances, which have appeared since that time, shew that the friends of the court, if not the prime ministers themselves, were the favourers of that riot; having, no doubt, thought to intimidate the friends of liberty by the measure.