Memoirs of Dr. Joseph Priestley : $b To the year 1795, written by himself: with a continuation, to the time of his decease, by his son, Joseph Priestley: and observations on his writings, by Thomas Cooper, President Judge of the 4th. district of Pennsylvania: and the Rev. William Christie.Priestley, Joseph
Religion
Memoirs of Dr. Joseph Priestley : $b To the year 1795, written by himself: with a continuation, to the time of his decease, by his son, Joseph Priestley: and observations on his writings, by Thomas Cooper, President Judge of the 4th. district of Pennsylvania: and the Rev. William Christie.
Priestley, Joseph
Chemists -- Great Britain -- Biography; Priestley, Joseph, 1733-1804
But I likewise considered that, if I went thither I should have no
employment of the kind to which I had been accustomed; and the season
of active life not being, according to the course of nature, quite
over, I wished to make as much use of it as I could. I therefore
determined to continue in England, exposed as I was not only to
unbounded obloquy and insult, but to every kind of outrage; and after
my invitation to succeed my friend Dr. Price, I had no hesitation
about it. Accordingly I took up my residence where I now am, though
so prevalent was the idea of my insecurity, that I was not able to
take the house in my own name; and when a friend of mine took it in
_his_, it was with much difficulty that, after some time, the landlord
was prevailed upon to transfer the lease to me. He expressed his
apprehensions, not only of the house that I occupied, being demolished,
but also a capital house in which he himself resides, at the distance
of no less than twenty miles from London, whither he supposed the
rioters would go next, merely for suffering me to live in a house of
_his_.
But even this does not give such an idea of the danger that not only
myself, but every person, and every thing, that had the slightest
connection with me, were supposed to be in, as the following. The
managers of one of the principal charities among the Dissenters applied
to me to preach their annual sermon, and I had consented. But the
treasurer a man of fortune, who knew nothing more of me than my name,
was so much alarmed at it, that he declared he could not sleep. I
therefore, to his great relief, declined preaching at all.
When it was known that I was settled where I now am, several of my
friends, who lived near me, were seriously advised to remove their
papers, and other most valuable effects, to some place of greater
safety in London. On the 14th of July, 1792, it was taken for granted
by many of the neighbours, that my house was to come down, just as
at Birmingham the year before. When the Hackney association was
formed, several servants in the neighbourhood actually removed their
goods; and when there was some political meeting at the house of Mr.
Breillat, though about two miles from my house, a woman whose daughter
was servant in the house contiguous to mine, came to her mistress,
to entreat that she might be out of the way; and it was not without
much difficulty that she was pacified, and prevailed upon to let her
continue in the house, her mistress saying that she was as safe as
herself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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