Chapter 3

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 patriæ, 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 illustrious 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:

Peter Porcupine is one of those writers who attempt to deal in wit--and to bear down every Republican principle by satire--but he miserably fails in both, for his wit is as stale as his satire, and his satire as insipid as his wit. He attempts to ridicule Dr. Franklin, but can any man of sense conceive any poignancy in styling this great philosopher, "poor Richard," or "the old lightning rod." Franklin, whose researches in philosophy have placed him preeminent among the first characters in this country, or in Europe: is it possible then that such a contemptible wretch as Peter Porcupine, (who never gave any specimen of his philosophy, but in bearing with Christian patience a severe whipping at the public post) can injure the exalted reputation of this great philosopher? The folly of the Editor of the Centinal, is the more conspicuous, in inserting his billingsgate abuse in a Boston paper, when this town, particularly the TRADESMAN of it are reaping such advantages from Franklin's liberality. The Editor of the Centinal ought to blush for his arrogance in vilifying this TRADESMEN'S FRIEND, by retailing the scurrility of so wretched a puppy as Peter Porcupine.

As to Dr. Priestley, the Editor was obliged to apologise in this particular--but colours it over as the effusions of genius--poor apology, indeed to stain his columns with scurrility and abuse, and after finding the impression too notoriously infamous, attempts to qualify it, sycophantic parenthesis.

The names of Franklin and Priestley will be enrolled in the catalogue of worthies, while the wretched Peter Porcupine, and his more wretched supporters, will sink into oblivion, unless the register of Newgate should be published, and their memories be raked from the loathsome rubbish as spectres of universal destestation.

And the London Monthly Review (August 10, 1796) commented as follows on Porcupine's animadversions upon Priestley:

Frequently as we have differed in opinion from Dr. Priestley, we should think it an act of injustice to his merit, not to say that the numerous and important services which he has rendered to science, and the unequivocal proofs which he has given of at least honest intention towards religion and Christianity ought to have protected him from such gross insults as are poured upon him in this pamphlet. Of the author's literary talent, we shall say but little: the phrases, "setting down to count the cost"--"the rights of the man the greatest bore in nature"--the appellation of rigmarole ramble, given to a correct sentence of Dr. Priestley--which the author attempts to criticise--may serve as specimens of his language.

The pitiful attempt at wit, in his vulgar fable of the pitcher haranguing the pans and jordans, will give him little credit as a writer, with readers of an elegant taste.--No censure, however, can be too severe for a writer who suffers the rancour of party spirit to carry him so far beyond the bounds of justice, truth and decency, as to speak of Dr. Priestley as an admirer of the massacres of France, and who would have wished to have seen the town of Birmingham like that of Lyons, razed, and all its industrious and loyal inhabitants butchered as a man whose conduct proves that he has either an understanding little superior to that of an idiot, or the heart of Marat: in short, as a man who fled into banishment covered with the universal destestation of his countrymen. The spirit, which could dictate such outrageous abuse, must disgrace any individual and any party.

Even before Porcupine began his abuse of Priestley, there appeared efforts intended no doubt to arouse opposition to him and dislike for him. One such, apparently very innocent in its purpose, appeared shortly after Priestley's settlement in Northumberland. It may be seen in _the Advertiser_, and reads thus:

The divinity of Jesus Christ proved in a publication to be sold by Francis Bayley in Market Street, between 3rd and 4th Streets, at the sign of the _Yorick's Head_--being a reply to Dr. Joseph Priestley's appeal to the serious and candid professors of Christianity.

The New York addresses clearly indicated the generous sympathy of hosts of Americans for Priestley. They were not perfunctory, but genuinely genuine. This brought joy to the distinguished emigrant, and a sense of fellowship, accompanied by a feeling of security.

More than a century has passed since these occurrences, and the reader of today is scarcely stirred by their declarations and appeals. Changes have come, in the past century, on both sides of the great ocean. Almost everywhere reigns the freedom so devoutly desired by the fathers of the long ago. It is so universal that it does not come as a first thought. Other changes, once constantly on men's minds have gradually been made.

How wonderful has been the development of New York since Priestley's brief sojourn in it. How marvelously science has grown in the great interim. What would Priestley say could he now pass up and down the famous avenues of our greatest City?

His decision to live in America, his labors for science in this land, have had a share in the astounding unfolding of the dynamical possibilities of America's greatest municipality.

The Priestleys were delighted with New York. They were frequent dinner guests of Governor Clinton, whom they liked very much and saw often, and they met with pleasure Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, the Professor of Chemistry in Columbia.

Amidst the endless fetes, attendant upon their arrival, there existed a desire to go forward. The entire family were eager to arrive at their real resting place--the home prepared by the sons who had preceded them to this Western world. Accordingly, on June 18, 1794, they left New York, after a fortnight's visit, and the _Advertiser_ of Philadelphia, June 21, 1794, contained these lines:

Last Thursday evening arrived in town from New York the justly celebrated philosopher Dr. Joseph Priestley.

Thus was heralded his presence in the City of his esteemed, honored friend, Franklin, who, alas! was then in the spirit land, and not able to greet him as he would have done had he still been a living force in the City of Brotherly Love. However, a very prompt welcome came from the American Philosophical Society, founded (1727) by the immortal savant, Franklin.

The President of this venerable Society, the oldest scientific Society in the Western hemisphere, was the renowned astronomer, David Rittenhouse, who said for himself and his associates:

THE American Philosophical Society, held at Philadelphia for promoting useful knowledge, offer you their sincere congratulations on your safe arrival in this country. Associated for the purposes of extending and disseminating those improvements in the sciences and the arts, which most conduce to substantial happiness of Man, the Society felicitate themselves and their country, that your talents and virtues, have been transferred to this Republic. Considering you as an illustrious member of this institution: Your colleagues anticipate your aid, in zealously promoting the objects which unite them; as a virtuous man, possessing eminent and useful acquirements, they contemplate with pleasure the accession of such worth to the American Commonwealth, and looking forward to your future character of a citizen of this, your adopted country, they rejoice in greeting, as such, an enlightened Republican.

In this free and happy country, those unalienable rights, which the Author of Nature committed to man as a sacred deposit, have been secured: Here, we have been enabled, under the favour of Divine Providence, to establish a government of Laws, and not of Men; a government, which secures to its citizens equal Rights, and equal Liberty, and which offers an asylum to the good, to the persecuted, and to the oppressed of other climes.

May you long enjoy every blessing which an elevated and highly cultivated mind, a pure conscience, and a free country are capable of bestowing.

And, in return, Priestley remarked.

IT is with peculiar satisfaction that I receive the congratulations of my brethren of the Philosophical Society in this City, on my arrival in this country. It is, in great part, for the sake of pursuing our common studies without molestation, though for the present you will allow, with far less advantage, that I left my native country, and have come to America; and a Society of Philosophers, who will have no objection to a person on account of his political or religious sentiments, will be as grateful, as it will be new to me. My past conduct, I hope, will show, that you may depend upon my zeal in promoting the valuable objects of your institution; but you must not flatter yourself, or me, with supposing, that, at my time of life, and with the inconvenience attending a new and uncertain settlement, I can be of much service to it.

I am confident, however, from what I have already seen of the spirit of the people of this country, that it will soon appear that Republican governments, in which every obstruction is removed to the exertion of all kinds of talent, will be far more favourable to science, and the arts, than any monarchical government has ever been. The patronage to be met with there is ever capricious, and as often employed to bear down merit as to promote it, having for its real object, not science or anything useful to mankind, but the mere reputation of the patron, who is seldom any judge of science. Whereas a Public which neither flatters nor is to be flattered will not fail in due time to distinguish true merit and to give every encouragement that it is proper to be given in the case. Besides by opening as you generously do an asylum to the persecuted and "oppressed of all climes," you will in addition to your own native stock, soon receive a large accession of every kind of merit, philosophical not excepted, whereby you will do yourselves great honour and secure the most permanent advantage to the community.

Doubtless in the society of so many worthy Philadelphians, the Priestleys were happy, for they had corresponded with not a few of them.

The longing for Northumberland became very great and one smiles on reading that the good Doctor thought "Philadelphia by no means so agreeable as New York ... Philadelphia would be very irksome to me.... It is only a place for business and to get money in." But in this City he later spent much of his time.

It was about the middle of July, 1794, that the journey to Northumberland began, and on September 14, 1794, Priestley wrote of Northumberland "nothing can be more delightful, or more healthy than this place."

Safely lodged among those dear to him one finds much pleasure in observing the great philosopher's activities. The preparation of a home for himself and his wife and the unmarried members of the family was uppermost in his mind. But much time was given to correspondence with loyal friends in England. Chief among these were the Reverends Lindsey and Belsham. The letters to these gentlemen disclose the plans and musings of the exile. For instance, in a communication to the former, dated September 14, 1794, he wrote:

The professor of chemistry in the College of Philadelphia is supposed to be on his death-bed ... in the case of a vacancy, Dr. Rush thinks I shall be invited to succeed him. In this case I must reside four months in one year in Philadelphia, and one principal inducement with me to accept of it will be the opportunity I shall have of forming an Unitarian Congregation....

And a month later he observed to the same friend:

Philadelphia is unpleasant, unhealthy, and intolerably expensive.... Every day I do something towards the continuation of my Church History.... I have never read so much Hebrew as I have since I left England....

He visited freely in the vicinity of Northumberland, spending much time in the open. Davy, a traveler, made this note:

Dr. Priestley visited us at Sunbury, looks well and cheerful, has left off his perriwig, and combs his short grey locks, in the true style of the simplicity of the country.... Dined very pleasantly with him. He has bought a lot of eleven acres (exclusively of that which he is building on), which commands a delightful view of all the rivers, and both towns, i.e. Sunbury and Northumberland and the country. It cost him 100£ currency.

It was also to Mr. Lindsey that he communicated, on November 12, 1794, a fact of no little interest, even today, to teachers of Chemistry in America. It was:

I have just received an invitation to the professorship of chemistry at Philadelphia ... when I considered that I must pass four months of every year from home, my heart failed me; and I declined it. If my books and apparatus had been in Philadelphia, I might have acted differently, but part of them are now arrived here, and the remainder I expect in a few days, and the expense and risk of conveyance of such things from Philadelphia hither is so great, that I cannot think of taking them back ... and in a year or two, I doubt not, we shall have a college established here.

It was about this time that his youngest son, Harry, in whom he particularly delighted, began clearing 300 acres of cheap land, and in this work the philosopher was greatly interested; indeed, on occasions he actually participated in the labor of removing the timber. Despite this manual labor there were still hours of every day given to the Church History, and to his correspondence which grew in volume, as he was advising inquiring English friends, who thought of emigrating, and very generally to them he recommended the perusal of Dr. Thomas Cooper's

"Advice to those who would remove to America--"

Through this correspondence, now and then, there appeared little animadversions on the quaint old town on the Delaware, such as

I never saw a town I liked less than Philadelphia.

Could this dislike have been due to the fact that--

Probably in no other place on the Continent was the love of bright colours and extravagance in dress carried to such an extreme. Large numbers of the Quakers yielded to it, and even the very strict ones carried gold-headed canes, gold snuff-boxes, and wore great silver buttons on their drab coats and handsome buckles on their shoes.

And

Nowhere were the women so resplendant in silks, satins, velvets, and brocades, and they piled up their hair mountains high.

Furthermore--

The descriptions of the banquets and feasts ... are appalling.

John Adams, when he first came down to Philadelphia, fresh from Boston, stood aghast at this life into which he was suddenly thrown and thought it must be sin. But he rose to the occasion, and, after describing in his diary some of the "mighty feasts" and "sinful feasts" ... says he drank Madeira "at a great rate and found no inconvenience."

It would only be surmise to state what were the Doctor's reasons for his frequent declaration of dislike for Philadelphia.

The winter of 1794-1795 proved much colder "than ever I knew it in England," but he cheerfully requested Samuel Parker to send him a hygrometer, shades or bell-glasses, jars for electrical batteries, and

a set of glass tubes with large bulbs at the end, such as I used in the experiments I last published on the generation of _Air_ from water.

Most refreshing is this demand upon a friend. It indicates the keen desire in Priestley to proceed with experimental studies, though surroundings and provisions for such undertakings were quite unsatisfactory. The spirit was there and very determined was its possessor that his science pursuits should not be laid totally aside. His attitude and course in this particular were admirable and exemplary. Too often the lack of an abundance of equipment and the absence of many of the supposed essentials, have been deterrents which have caused men to abandon completely their scientific investigations. However, such was not the case with the distinguished exile, and for this he deserved all praise.

From time to time, in old papers and books of travel, brief notes concerning Priestley appear. These exhibit in a beautiful manner the human side of the man. They cause one to wish that the privilege of knowing this worthy student of chemical science might have been enjoyed by him. For example, a Mr. Bakewell chanced upon him in the spring of 1795 and recorded:

I found him (Priestley) a man rather below the middle size, straight and plain, wearing his own hair; and in his countenance, though you might discern the philosopher, yet it beamed with so much simplicity and freedom as made him very easy of access.

It is also stated in Davy's "Journal of Voyage, etc."--

The doctor enjoys a game at whist; and although he never hazards a farthing, is highly diverted with playing good cards, but never ruffled by bad ones.

In May, 1795, Priestley expressed himself as follows:

As to the experiments, I find I cannot do much till I get my own house built. At present I have all my books and instruments in one room, in the house of my son.

This is the first time in all his correspondence that reference is made to experimental work. It was in 1795. As a matter of course every American chemist is interested to know when he began experimentation in this country.

In the absence of proper laboratory space and the requisite apparatus, it is not surprising that he thought much and wrote extensively on religious topics, and further he would throw himself into political problems, for he addressed Mr. Adams on restriction "in the naturalization of foreigners." He remarked that--

Party strife is pretty high in this country, but the Constitution is such that it cannot do any harm.

To friends, probably reminding him of being "unactive, which affects me much," he answered:

As to the chemical lectureship (in Philadelphia) I am convinced I could not have acquitted myself in it to proper advantage. I had no difficulty in giving a general course of chemistry at Hackney (England), lecturing only once a week; but to give a lecture every day for four months, and to enter so particularly into the subject as a course of lectures in a medical University (Pennsylvania) requires, I was not prepared for; and my engagements there would not, at my time of life, have permitted me to make the necessary preparations for it; if I could have done it at all. For, though I have made discoveries in some branches of chemistry, I never gave much attention to the common routine of it, and know but little of the common processes.

Is not this a refreshing confession from the celebrated discoverer of oxygen? The casual reader would not credit such a statement from one who August 1, 1774, introduced to the civilized world so important an element as oxygen. Because he did not know the "common processes" of chemistry and had not concerned himself with the "common routine" of it, led to his blazing the way among chemical compounds in his own fashion. Many times since the days of Priestley real researchers after truth have proceeded without compass and uncovered most astonishing and remarkable results. They had the genuine research spirit and were driven forward by it. Priestley knew little of the labyrinth of analysis and cared less; indeed, he possessed little beyond an insatiable desire to unfold Nature's secrets.

Admiration for Priestley increases on hearing him descant on the people about him--on the natives--

Here every house-keeper has a garden, out of which he raises almost all he wants for his family. They all have cows, and many have horses, the keeping of which costs them little or nothing in the summer, for they ramble with bells on their necks in the woods, and come home at night. Almost all the fresh meat they have is salted in the autumn, and a fish called _shads_ in the spring. This salt shad they eat at breakfast, with their tea and coffee, and also at night. We, however, have not yet laid aside our English customs, and having made great exertion to get fresh meat, it will soon come into general use.

Proudly must he have said--

My youngest son, Harry, works as hard as any farmer in the country and is as attentive to his farm, though he is only eighteen.... Two or three hours I always work in the fields along with my son....

And, then as a supplement, for it was resting heavily on his mind, he added--

What I chiefly attend to now is my Church History ... but I make some experiments every day (July 12, 1795), and shall soon draw up a paper for the Philosophical Society at Philadelphia.

Early in December of 1795 he entrusted a paper, intended for the American Philosophical Society to the keeping of Dr. Young, a gentleman from Northumberland en route for Europe. Acquainting his friend Lindsey of this fact, he took occasion to add--

I have much more to do in my laboratory, but I am under the necessity of shutting up for the winter, as the frost will make it impossible to keep my water fit for use, without such provision as I cannot make, till I get my own laboratory prepared on purpose, when I hope to be able to work alike, winter and summer.