Part 2 (1/2)

A welcome to this country from my fellow labourers in the instruction of youth, is, I a.s.sure you, peculiarly grateful to me.

Cla.s.ses of men, as well as individuals, are apt to form too high ideas of their own importance; but certainly one of the most important is, that which contributes so much as ours do to the c.u.mmunication of useful knowledge, as forming the characters of men, thereby fitting them for their several stations in society.

In some form or other this has been my employment and delight; and my princ.i.p.al object in flying for an asylum to this country, ”a land,” as I hope you justly term it, ”of virtuous simplicity, and a recess from the intriguing politics, and vicious refinements of the European world,” is that I may, without molestation, pursue my favourite studies. And if I had an opportunity of making choice of an employment for what remains of active exertion in life, it would be one in which I should as I hope I have hitherto done, contribute with you, to advance the cause of science, of virtue, and of religion.

Further, The Medical Society of the State of New York through Dr. John Charlton, its President, said:

PERMIT us, Sir, to wait upon you with an offering of our sincere congratulations, on your safe arrival, with your lady and family in this happy country, and to express our real joy, in receiving among us, a gentleman, whose labours have contributed so much to the diffusion and establishment of civil and religious liberty, and whose deep researches into the true principles of natural philosophy, have derived so much improvement and real benefit, not only to the sciences of chemistry and medicine, but to various other arts, all of which are necessary to the ornament and utility of human life.

May you, Sir, possess and enjoy, here, uninterrupted contentment and happiness, and may your valuable life be continued a farther blessing to mankind.

And in his answer Dr. Priestley remarked:

I THINK myself greatly honoured in being congratulated on my arrival in this country by a Society of persons whose studies bear some relation to my own. To continue, without fear of molestation, on account of the most open profession of any sentiments, civil or religious, those pursuits which you are sensible have for their object the advantage of all mankind, (being, as you justly observe, ”necessary to the ornament and utility of human life”) is my princ.i.p.al motive for leaving a country in which that tranquility and sense of security which scientificial pursuits require, cannot be had; and I am happy to find here, persons who are engaged in the same pursuits, and who have the just sense that you discover of their truly enviable situation.

As a climax to greetings extended in the City of New York, The Republican Natives of Great Britain and Ireland resident in that city said,

WE, the Republican natives of Great Britain and Ireland, resident in the city of New York, embrace, with the highest satisfaction, the opportunity which your arrival in this city presents, of bearing our testimony to your character and virtue and of expressing our joy that you come among us in circ.u.mstances of such good health and spirits.

We have beheld with the keenest sensibility, the unparallelled persecutions which attended you in your native country, and have sympathized with you under all their variety and extent. In the firm hope, that you are now completely removed from the effects of every species of intolerance, we most sincerely congratulate you.

After a fruitless opposition to a corrupt and tyrannical government, many of us have, like you, sought freedom and protection in the United States of America; but to this we have all been princ.i.p.ally induced, from the full persuasion, that a republican representative government, was not merely best adapted to promote human happiness, but that it is the only rational system worthy the wisdom of man to project, or to which his reason should a.s.sent.

Partic.i.p.ating in the many blessings which the government of this country is calculated to insure, we are happy in giving it this proof of our respectful attachment:--We are only grieved, that a system of such beauty and excellence, should be at all tarnished by the existence of slavery in any form; but as friends to the Equal Rights of Man, we must be permitted to say, that we wish these Rights extended to every human being, be his complexion what it may. We, however, look forward with pleasing antic.i.p.ation to a yet more perfect state of society; and, from that love of liberty which forms so distinguis.h.i.+ng a trait in American character, are taught to hope that this last--this worse disgrace to a free government, will finally and forever be done away.

While we look back on our native country with emotions of pity and indignation at the outrages which humanity has sustained in the persons of the virtuous Muir, and his patriotic a.s.sociates; and deeply lament the fatal apathy into which our countrymen have fallen; we desire to be thankful to the Great Author of our being that we are in America, and that it has pleased Him, in his Wise Providence, to make the United States an asylum not only from the immediate tyranny of the British Government, but also from those impending calamities, which its increasing despotism and multiplied iniquities, must infallibly bring down on a deluded and oppressed people.

Accept, Sir, of our affectionate and best wishes for a long continuance of your health and happiness.

The answer of the aged philosopher to this address was:

I think myself peculiarly happy in finding in this country so many persons of sentiments similar to my own, some of whom have probably left Great Britain or Ireland on the same account, and to be so cheerfully welcomed by them on my arrival. You have already had experience of the difference between the governments of the two countries, and I doubt not, have seen sufficient reason to give the decided preference that you do to that of this. There all liberty of speech and of the press as far as politics are concerned, is at an end, and a spirit of intolerance in matters of religion is almost as high as in the time of the Stuarts. Here, having no countenance from government, whatever may remain of this spirit, from the ignorance and consequent bigotry, of former times, it may be expected soon to die away; and on all subjects whatever, every man enjoys invaluable liberty of speaking and writing whatever he pleases.

The wisdom and happiness of Republican governments and the evils resulting from hereditary monarchical ones, cannot appear in a stronger light to you than they do to me. We need only look to the present state of Europe and of America, to be fully satisfied in this respect. The former will easily reform themselves, and among other improvements, I am persuaded, will be the removal of that vestige of servitude to which you allude, as it so ill accords with the spirit of equal liberty, from which the rest of the system has flowed; whereas no material reformation of the many abuses to which the latter are subject, it is to be feared, can be made without violence and confusion.

I congratulate you, gentlemen, as you do me, on our arrival in a country in which men who wish well to their fellow citizens, and use their best endeavours to render them the most important services, men who are an honour to human nature and to any country, are in no danger of being treated like the worst felons, as is now the case in Great Britain.

Happy should I think myself in joining with you in welcoming to this country every friend of liberty, who is exposed to danger from the tyranny of the British Government, and who, while they continue under it, must expect to share in those calamities, which its present infatuation must, sooner or later, bring upon it. But let us all join in supplications to the Great Parent of the Universe, that for the sake of the many excellent characters in our native country its government may be reformed, and the judgments impending over it prevented.

The hearty reception accorded Dr. Priestley met in due course with a cruel attack upon him by William Cobbett, known under the pen-name of Peter Porcupine, an Englishman, who after arrival in this country enjoyed a rather prosperous life by formulating scurrilous literature--attacks upon men of prominence, stars s.h.i.+ning brightly in the human firmament.

An old paper, the _Argus_, for the year 1796, said of this Peter Porcupine:

When this political caterpillar was crawling about at St. John's, Nova Scotia, in support of his Britannic Majesty's glorious cause, against the United States, and holding the rank of serjeant major in the 54th regiment, then quartered in that land, ”flowing with milk and honey,” and GRINDSTONES, and commanded by Colonel Bruce; it was customary for some of the officers to hire out the soldiers to the country people, instead of keeping them to military duty, and to pocket the money themselves. Peter found he could make a _speck_ out of this, and therefore kept a watchful eye over the sins of his superiors. When the regiment was recalled and had returned to England--Peter, brimful of amor patriae, was about to prefer a complaint against the officers, when they came down with a round sum of the ready rino, and a promise of his discharge, in case of secrecy.--This so staggered our incorruptible and independent hero and quill driver, that he agreed to the terms, received that very honorable discharge, mentioned with so much emphasis, in the history of his important life--got cash enough to come to America, by circuitous route and to set himself up with the necessary implements of scandal and abuse.

This flea, this spider, this corporal, has dared to point his impotent spleen at the memory of that ill.u.s.trious patriot, statesman and philosopher, Benjamin Franklin.

Let the buzzing insect reflect on this truth--that

”Succeeding times great Franklin's works shall quote, When 'tis forgot--this Peter ever wrote.”

And the _Advertiser_ declared: