“In this almost universal prevalence of a spirit so extremely hostile to me and my friends, and which would be gratified by my destruction, it cannot be any matter of surprise, that a son of mine should wish to abandon a country in which his father has been used as I have been, especially when it is considered that this son was present at the riot in Birmingham, exerting himself all the dreadful night of the 14th of July, to save what he could of my most valuable property; that in consequence of this his life was in imminent danger, and another young man was nearly killed because he was mistaken for him. This would probably have been his fate, if a friend had not almost perforce kept him concealed some days, so that neither myself nor his mother knew what was become of him. I had not, however, the ambition to court the honour that has been shewn him by the national assembly of France, and even declined the proposal of his naturalization. At the most, I supposed it would have been done without any _eclat_; and I knew nothing of its being done in so very honourable a way until I saw the account in the public newspapers. To whatever country this son of mine shall choose to attach himself, I trust that, from the good principles, and the spirit, that he has hitherto shewn, he will discharge the duties of a good citizen.” “As to myself, I cannot be supposed to feel much attachment to a country in which I have neither found protection, nor redress. But I am too old, and my habits too fixed, to remove, as I own I should otherwise have been disposed to do, to France, or America. The little that I am capable of doing must be in England, where I shall therefore continue, as long as it shall please the supreme Disposer of all things to permit me[25]. [25] “Since this was written, I have myself, without any solicitation on my part, been made a citizen of France, and moreover elected a member of the present Conventional Assembly. These, I scruple not to avow, I consider as the greatest of honours; though, for the reasons which are now made public, I have declined accepting the latter.” It might have been thought that, having written so much in defence of revelation, and of Christianity in general, more perhaps than all the clergy of the church of England now living; this defence of a _common cause_ would have been received as some atonement for my demerits in writing against civil establishments of christianity, and particular doctrines. But had I been an open enemy of all religion, the animosity against me could not have been greater than it is. Neither Mr. Hume nor Mr. Gibbon was a thousandth part so obnoxious to the clergy as I am; so little respect have my enemies for christianity itself, compared with what they have for their emoluments from it.”