Your resentment of the treatment I have met with in this country is truly generous, but I must have been but little impressed with the principles of the religion you so justly commend, if they had not enabled me to bear much more than I have yet suffered. Do not suppose that, after the much worse treatment to which I was for many years exposed in England (of which the pamphlet I take the liberty to inclose will give you some idea) I was much affected by this. My _Letters to the Inhabitants of Northumberland_ were not occasioned by any such thing, tho it served me as a pretense for writing them, but the threatenings of Mr. Pickering, whose purpose to send me out of the country Mr. Adams (as I conclude from a circuitous attempt that he made to prevent it) would not, in the circumstances in which he then was, have been able to directly oppose. My publication was of service to me in that and other respects and I hope, in some measure, to the common cause. But had it not been for the extreme absurdity and violence of the late administration, I do not know how far the measures might not have been carried. I rejoice more than I can express in the glorious reverse that has taken place, and which has secured your election. This I flatter myself will be the permanent establishment of truly republican principles in this country, and also contribute to the same desirable event in more distant ones. I beg you would not trouble yourself with any answer to this. The knowledge of your good opinion and good wishes, is quite sufficient for me. I feel for the difficulties of your situation, but your spirit and prudence will carry you thro them, tho not without paying the tax which the wise laws of nature have imposed upon preeminence and celebrity of every kind, a tax which, for want of true greatness of mind, neither of your predecessors, if I estimate their characters aright, paid without much reluctance. With every good wish, I am, Dear Sir, Yours sincerely, J. PRIESTLEY. P.S. As I trust that _Politics_ will not make you forget what is due to _science_, I shall send you a copy of some articles that are just printed for the _Transactions of the Philosophical Society_ in this place. No. (5) p. 36 is the most deserving of your notice. I should have sent you my _Defence of Phlogiston_, but that I presume you have seen it. June, 1802. To Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States of America. Sir, My high respect for your character, as a politician, and a man, makes me desirous of connecting my name, in some measure with yours while it is in my power, by means of some publication, to do it.