money. The Dissenters are much more a society with which the members of the Church of England have no business to meddle, as they do not contribute to the support of our worship. According to this writer, Dissenters have nothing to do with either the church or the state, but must be passive lookers on in every thing; patiently bearing every burden that is laid upon them.

From the whole of this performance, which, whether coming from any authority or not, evidently speaks the language of all the high-church party, it is evident that we are to receive blows for words, and fire and sword for argument. Let them, then, go to their purpose, and proceed as they have begun, viz. to burn our houses and meetinghouses, and ourselves too, if they can find us in them; for that was their intention at Birmingham. We also shall defend ourselves as we have hitherto done, i. e. with more writing, and more arguments. All men, and all animals, naturally have recourse to such weapons as they find themselves furnished with, and are most expert in the use of; and insignificant as ours may appear, in comparison with theirs, they will be found more effectual. We will say as the noble Florentine said to the French king and his officers, "Do you sound your trumpets, and we will ring our bells."

66

This writer says, that, as a philosopher, I know something of human nature, and how irritable men are on the subject of their national religion ;" and that my “ political animadversions did not act merely on the understandings of men, but that they took hold of their passions." This, indeed, we have found to our cost. But it is likewise well known that passion predominates most where there is the greatest deficiency of reason. The primitive Christians also, and the first Protestants, found that their adversaries had passions, which they were always ready to oppose to the dictates of reason; and that, having as little to say for themselves, they were as irritable as the high-church party at Birmingham. But this circumstance was no sufficient motive with the primitive Christians, or the Protestants, for silence, nor will it be any with us; and if this writer, or his friends, imagine that the Riots in Birmingham will silence us, and produce no writing, he will be greatly mistaken indeed. I foresee a deluge of pamphlets on the Ibid. p. 51. (P.)

• Thoughts, p. 12. (P.)

in my

occasion; and if he had wished that there should be no writing on our side, he should not have published on his. If this writer be surprised at finding nothing penitential "Letter to the Inhabitants of Birmingham," others will be as much surprised on finding nothing of commiseration in his pamphlet, except for the wretches whom he expected would be executed for what they did in the business. Of this, he has drawn an affecting picture indeed, as of the sufferings of so many martyrs to the church, and to religion. "This riot," he says, "will be followed with the sacrifice of many lives on the altar of public justice. Disconsolate women are soon to take their last embrace of their husbands, children to shriek at the sight of their fathers suspended before their own doors, and heart-broken parents to follow their sons to the fatal tree, some of whom, had they not been put in motion by the ferment his writings have contributed to raise, had never disturbed the peace of society. Had there been any sympathy in the heart that dictated the letter, on the events that must draw such calamities after them, there had surely been one line expressive of such a sensation. Let the reader find it, if he can." And let the reader look through this whole pamphlet, and find, if he can, any thing like such a fellow-feeling for the innocent sufferers, as he here expresses for the wicked authors of their sufferings. In a note, however, on this passage, (which, I suppose, he thought too eloquently written to be lost,) the author says, he is happy" to find that his ideas were not fully justified by the

* "We do not find," says another author of Strictures on this pamphlet, “that our Saviour required his disciples, when they were persecuted in one city for preaching, like Dr. Priestley, unpopular doctrines, to send penitential letters to its inhabitants; on the contrary, they were commanded to shake off the very dust from their feet, for a testimony against it. Such was the light in which the enemies of discussion, the opposers of investigation, were regarded by the grand Innovator of Nazareth, the formidable heresiarch of his day, the disturber of the peace of church and state, the reputed implacable enemy of the established hierarchy. The striking sympathy which you then feel towards the persecutors of Dr. Priestley, does not proceed from a Christian spirit. That Dr. Priestley did commiserate the wretches that were the perpetrators of the mischief, no one can doubt. Not to have felt pity for them, would have been wrong. Still, as matters then stood, it would have been highly improper and unwise to have filled an address to them with sentiments of that sort. There would have been something weak and mean in it that did not well accord with consciousness of perfect innocence; and though you take the liberty of prescribing it, I do not think it improbable but that, had it been done, you would have been the first to have made a handle of it; to have insulted the cant of it, and to have made a jest of the tameness which it discovered." Welsh Freeholder, 1791, pp. 9, 10.

+ Thoughts, p. 3. (P.)

issue of the late assizes held at Warwick." Indeed, "the incomparable behaviour of the magistrates and of the jury," and the proper representations made to the king," have happily saved this writer and his friends much of the pain which they expected from the cruel and unmerited sufferings of their fellow-churchmen. Had our sufferings been ten times greater than they have been, so much greater would have been their pious exultation over us.*

I do not undertake to animadvert upon every thing that deserves animadversion in this pamphlet ; but I cannot conclude these Strictures without observing, that, as a compliment to the Church of England, against which Dissenters must not write, the author says, "Lays it any restraint on the spirit of inquiry, and how, then, is it hostile to the clearest truth?" Is, then, subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles at an age in which it is impossible for persons to have studied them, no restraint on the spirit of inquiry? And is not every restraint on the spirit of inquiry necessarily hostile to truth? But no man can see the darkest spot on his own forehead. Otherwise this writer could not but have been sensible of this, and many other most glaring absurdities in his intemperate publication.

* "Let none," says the writer just quoted," abate of the reverence with which they have been wont to regard Dr. Priestley, because the friends of church and state have exiled him from his home, burned his house, sought to destroy his property, and ransacked his papers. He is not the only philosopher, not the only sage, not the only pious Christian, whom the friends of church and state have persecuted. For Socrates was put to death by the friends of church and state.— Our Saviour was crucified by the friends of church and state. The apostles were put to death, and the primitive Christians made martyrs of by the friends of church and state.—Our illustrious countryman, Roger Bacon, for his studies in natural philosophy, was thrown into prison by the friends of church and state. Galileo was thrown into that of the Inquisition, for saying that the earth moved, by the friends of church and state. The excellent Grotius, for denying the decree of reprobation, was imprisoned by the friends of church and state. Locke was dishonoured at Oxford by the friends of church and state. Dr. Clarke was put to the alternative of being stripped of his preferment, or of disgracing his reputation by a quibble, by the friends of church and state. Honest Whiston, the coadjutor and successor of Sir I. Newton, was, on the charge of heresy, expelled from the mathematical chair at Cambridge, by the friends of church and state; while his successor, [Saunderson,] an immoral man and an infidel, sat in it without disturbance from the friends of church and state. And Dr. Priestley, for calling in question religious mysteries consecrated near three hundred years ago by monks or monkish priests, by ambitious ecclesiastics, and a female head of the church, is persecuted with unrelenting inveteracy by the friends of church and state. The talents and virtues of Dr. Priestley had before diffused around him a lustre that spread over a vast extent; the efforts of his enemies have caused its boundaries to be enlarged, by elevating the eminence whence it irradiates. The ultimate glory to which the heroes of science and philanthropy of every age have attained, that of suffering for the most meritorious services, and the purest intentions, they have conferred upon this excellent person.' Strictures by a Welsh Freeholder, 1791, pp. 37-39. See infra, p. 441, Note . ↑ Thoughts, p. 11. (P.)

THE facts advanced in the former part of my "Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the Riots in Birmingham" having appeared to myself and my friends incontrovertibly true, I did not, at the time that I wrote it, expect that I should have any occasion to trouble the world with another publication on a subject which to myself must be suffi ciently disagreeable. But as not only have those facts been denied, but much additional censure been reflected upon me and the Dissenters, by the clergy of Birmingham, who have employed the pen of Mr. Burn, I find myself under the necessity of engaging in a controversy, the termination of which I do not see. For I think myself bound in honour, and in duty to my fellow-sufferers, not to withhold whatever shall appear to me to be proper for our common vindication.

Let our enemies, then, dispute our facts, and advance

* See Appendix, No. XVI.

their farther calumnies. I shall not fail to reply to them, till the public shall be in possession of all that is necessary to form their judgment on a subject that certainly interests the whole community. For, if any one set of men may be insulted and oppressed with impunity on account of their religious persuasion; if neither the common courts of law, nor the cool opinion of their countrymen, will do them justice; another set may, in their turn, be exposed to the same, and an all-grasping and domineering hierarchy may crush us all. It behoves us, then, seriously to consider our situation, and let our enemies consider theirs. And the case of persecution for religious principle is no new thing in the world; we have but too many precedents before us to determine our judgment and direct our conduct.

It will be observed, and, I doubt not, to our prejudice, that but few names appear in this narrative of facts. But, considering the great prevalence of a violent party-spirit among the more wealthy and powerful in the town and neighbourhood of Birmingham, and how much it will appear that some persons have already suffered in consequence of giving evidence in favour of Dissenters, and being otherwise friendly to them, it would be unjustifiable in me to expose them to farther injury without very particular reason. Every name, however, that is alluded to in this work, is ready to be produced if necessary. If, in any very particular case, I should decline giving my authority, I can only pledge my own veracity for having a sufficient authority, which my reader will believe or not, according to his idea of my moral character. Except a very few, all the facts I have mentioned are contained in affidavits voluntarily tendered; and many more, I doubt not, will appear when it shall seem to be safe to the parties. However, those affidavits which tend most to criminate particular persons, have already been recited by Mr. Whitbread and others, when an inquiry was moved for in the House of Commons into the causes of the Riot. Knowing, therefore, what is laid to their charge, it behoves them to take proper method of removing the imputations under which they lie. A good account of the debate on this subject may now be seen in the Parliamentary Register, published by Mr. Debrett. From perusing this, our countrymen will form their own judgment, whether there was sufficient

the

* May 21, 1792. See Vol. XV. p. 522, Note.