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
I have been thus particular in the account of his reasons for settling
at Northumberland, and of the different inducements offered to him to
fix elsewhere, to do away the erroneous reports respecting the former,
and likewise to counteract the idea that has been so industriously
circulated in England, that his abilities were undervalued, that the
bigotry and prejudice he had to encounter in this country, were greater
than were opposed to him in England; that his life was in consequence
rendered uncomfortable, and that if he could, he would have been
glad to have returned to his native country, but was restrained by
a sense of shame. Some colour was given to these reports by many of
his countrymen who, from motives best known to themselves, perhaps
thinking thereby to excuse the inconsistency of their own conduct,
corroborated the accounts, though many of them had never seen my
father in this country, and had no authority whatever for assertions
which were entirely calumnies. Some currency was also given to the
statement, by the false and injurious accounts published by the Duke de
Liancourt, whose book if I may judge of it by that part which treats of
Pennsylvania, and of this neighbourhood in particular, is not entitled
to the least credit, being false in almost every particular. This my
father himself has stated in a letter addressed to him.
The writer, understanding the language of the country but very
imperfectly, must necessarily have been liable to many mistakes; nor
is it to be wondered at that a man who details all the tittle tattle
of every table to which he is invited, and who can basely convert the
hospitable reception he meets with in a strange country, into the means
of turning into ridicule those who shewed him attention and meant to
serve him, should be even capable of fabricating and circulating gross
and injurious falsehoods respecting individuals. I should disgrace
myself, in my opinion, and still more should I disgrace the high
situation which my father held in the esteem of the public, were I in
this work to enter into any further consideration of his attack on
my father’s character, satisfied that it is beyond the reach of his
falsehoods and unprovoked malevolence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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