as they might have been to retain the power they once had, appeared in their conduct with respect to King Edward's Charity School in that town; the governors of which were once Dissenters, and it was in their power to have admitted no other among them; but they always chose to take some of the principal of the church people to act with them. It happened, however, that at one particular meeting, at which those church people made a point of attending, while some of the Dissenters were absent, they took that opportunity of choosing another churchman, by which they became the majority; and from that time, except in the single case of Mr. Russell, they have never chosen any Dissenter into their body, and have repeatedly declared they never would. Let not, then, the church people at Birmingham upbraid the Dissenters with a love of power.

I had a view to the bigotry of the town of Birmingham, and hoped to succeed in allaying it, by means of the public library, in the establishment of which I particularly interested myself; as that would necessarily bring the reading and thinking part of the town better acquainted with each other. *

With respect to the business of the library, in which it was not possible for any man to act with more liberality than I did, Mr. Burn says, "We never saw great talents so degraded by party considerations as in the conduct of Dr. Priestley in some parts of that business." But, in his usual manner, he does not say what those parts of my conduct were. ‡

What it is that Mr. Burn alludes to, when he says that I degraded my great talents, I believe it will not be very easy for any person, acquainted with the facts, to conjecture. Had I, as Mr. Curtis did, openly canvassed the subscribers for the purpose of getting a committee to my mind, I should indeed have degraded my talents, whether they had been great or small; but it is well known that all my proceedings were fair and candid. The harshest thing that I said of the

The annual advertisement, which was drawn up by me, and which was continued for some time by the high-church party, after they gained the ascendancy they now have in that library, but which they have since dropped, I shall insert in the Appendix, No. XXIV. (P.)

† Reply, p. 14. (P.)

As a small pamphlet, which I published ou occasion of a motion to prevent the purchase of books of religious controversy, will give the reader some idea of the spirit with which I acted in this business, I shall give the whole, or a considerable part, of it in the Appendix, No. XXV.; and let Mr. Burn, if he pleases, republish the pamphlet which one of the clergy wrote on the occasion, and signed M.S. (P.) See supra, p. 361.

clergy who withdrew from the library because my "History of the Corruptions of Christianity" was voted into it, was, that their conduct was childish. The subscribers seem to have thought as I did; for though Mr. Curtis, in the note he wrote on the occasion, expressed his wish, "that all the members of the Church of England would follow his example," not one of them, except the clergy, did so.

Another childish and paltry instance of bigotry, in some member of the Church of England on that occasion, was striking out the title of Reverend prefixed to Mr. Scholefield's name and mine in the list of the committee. A subscriber found the ink with which the erasure had been made not quite dry; and inquiring who had been in the library, was informed that only Mr. Curtis and Mr. Lloyd, a Quaker, had been there. Being interrogated on the subject, they both denied having done it. If, notwithstanding this, Mr. Curtis was generally believed to have done it, the fault is not mine. As little regard has been paid to his most solemn asseveration by Dr. Parr, a brother clergyman.*

Without the least regard to truth, Mr. Burn speaks of me as having been "adopted the champion and leader of the whole body," (viz. of Dissenters,) "in the business of the application to parliament for the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts;" and he adds, that "after organizing the whole body of Dissenters, and bringing them to act as one man, their future conduct in this affair was to be governed, as unquestionably it has been, and especially in this and the neighbouring counties, by the maxims of his policy."† In all this Mr. Burn shews his utter ignorance of this whole business; and, though he pays no regard to what I have before said on this subject, viz. that I had very little to do in it, he should have procured information from some other quarter, and have mentioned his authority. Of the many Letters, Resolutions, &c. relating to this affair, that were drawn up at Birmingham, I did not write one. I attended but few of the meetings even there, and though I attended one at Nottingham, it was because I had business of my own in that place. I assisted, indeed, in drawing up the resolutions that were agreed upon there, but said little or nothing at the meeting. Indeed, it is well known that I am very backward to speak in public; being on several accounts, especially a tendency to stammering, unfit for public speaking.

In his Sequel. See supra, p. 436, Note.
See Vol. 1. Memoirs, 36, 44.

+ Reply, p. 21. (P.)

On the failure of this application to parliament, Mr. Burn says, "Circumstances did arise which tended extremely to expose the true temper and views of Dr. Priestley, and to sink him prodigiously in the opinion of his townsmen."* I wish Mr. Burn had said what those circumstances were, and I now call upon him to name them. I had no views that were peculiar to myself, or that were not common to all Dissenters; and what I did to promote those views was nothing peculiar to myself, and less than was done by many others; not a hundredth part, I may venture to say, of what was done, and ably done, by Mr. Walker of Nottingham, † not to speak of others. Indeed, it is well known that I was never solicitous about the object. But it is Mr. Burn's manner to make general assertions without appealing to any specific facts capable of being scrutinized.

The Discourse which I preached and published on this occasion I called "the most calm and moderate that ever was written on a political subject." This Mr. Burn does not deny; but as nothing good can come from me, he gives it the following turn: " They perceived, indeed, that his gird at the minister had taught him circumspection, and that, his wounds received in the encounter being yet fresh, he fought cautiously; but the true design of this piece of management was too palpable to be mistaken."§ In this he alludes to my Letter to Mr. Pitt, by which that minister might receive a wound, but it will not be easy to find the scars of any that I received. If I had wounds, they did not prevent my continuing to fight on, (if I must pursue Mr. Burn's metaphor,) and what I wrote afterwards in my Answer to Mr. Burke, and my Familiar Letters, betray no diminution of vigour or spirit. But that the temper with which I delivered and published that sermon was not artfully assumed for the occasion, as Mr. Burn insinuates, but habitual to me, will appear from what I wrote respecting the same. subject in one of the earliest of my publications. ||

Mr. Burn would in vain charge me with even alluding to facts that I am not prepared to authenticate. With respect to the report of my converting Silas Deane to Atheism, Mr. Burn says, "Will he oblige the public with the names of some of those clergymen in the town and neighbourhood by

Reply, p. 18. (P.)

+ In "The Dissenters' Plea; or the Appeal of the Dissenters to the Justice, Honour and Religion of the Kingdom, by G. Walker, F. R. S." 1790.

See supra, p. 369.

Reply, p. 23. (P.)

My Address to Protestant Dissenters as such," 1769. (P.) This will appear in a subsequent volume.

whom this account was so industriously circulated?* Now I doubt not Mr. Burn knows much more of this business than I do. I will mention, however, that Mr. Swainson of Rowley, and a clergyman, dining at Stratford, both strongly recommended the pamphlet in which that story was pub lished, as did Mr. Curtis, at the library-room in Birmingham. The person who heard him is ready to attest it.

Let the reader judge from these particulars whether I have given a false account of the temper of the members of the Established Church in Birmingham in general, or of that of the clergy in particular. It was the extreme of bigotry, the same that had existed in the place long before I went thither, what I in vain endeavoured to allay, what exists there at present in as great violence as ever, and will, I fear, continue a long time; for it appears to have been greatly inflamed by the late Riot.

SECTION IV.

Of the predisposing Causes of the Riot.

I CONSIDER the view that was perpetually exhibited of the Dissenters, and especially of the Unitarians in general, and of myself in particular, by the clergy of Birmingham, and others who occasionally preached in their pulpits, as a principal predisposing cause of the Riot; as they necessarily led the people to consider us as the very pests of society; from which the wish and the endeavour to exterminate us, as such, was but too obvious and natural. Mr. Burn, in what I have already quoted from him, strongly denies the fact; but there is evidence of it now existing in the printed sermons of Dr. Croft and Mr. Madan, which are well known to have been in the same strain with many others delivered in the pulpits at Birmingham while I resided there; and it will not be supposed that what they have printed was less guarded than what was not.

Mr. Madan, who says that his Discourse was published "at the request of many before whom it was delivered," which is a proof of their party-spirit, as well as of his own, speaks with particular approbation of the sermons of Dr. Croft and Mr. Clutton; the latter of which he laments was not printed, and which I remember to have heard spoken of as peculiarly violent; as the sermons of Mr. Curtis were

Reply, p. 26. (P.)

also said to be. The reader may therefore judge of the inflammatory tendency of these sermons of the clergy in general, by the following extracts from those of Dr. Croft and Mr. Madan.

They both agree in representing the principles of the Dissenters as unquestionably republican.' "Those of the Socinians," which Mr. Madan speaks of as evidently gaining ground, he says, " are certainly no less dangerous to the state than the tenets of Popery." Both these preachers represent our principles as not only theoretically but practically seditious. Of the sentiments of Dr. Price, Dr. Croft says, "They spread jealousy and discontent through the kingdom, and were little short of blasphemy." "The Dissenters," he says, "wish to destroy the whole fabric of our constitution." Mr. Madan also represents us as no "Is there no reason,' better than king-killers in general. he says, "to receive with suspicion their declarations of reverence to the government, and of loyalty to the king, however plausibly and spontaneously announced, when the amount of that reverence has been exactly ascertained by the woeful experience of republican tyranny, and the extent of their loyalty has been exactly delineated by the blood of a king?" He also says, that he "always regarded our principles as pointedly hostile and dangerous to our happy constitution."||

When he was called upon by me to defend these strange and injurious aspersions, which are in contradiction to all history, and even to recent facts, and especially to all my principles as contained in my writings, he appeared willing indeed to except from his charges the more moderate or Calvinistic Dissenters, but by no means myself and others whom he terms "the more violent Dissenters;" and in vindication of what he had advanced concerning the king-killing principles being still retained by the Dissenters, he says, that " principles are a long-lived generation;"¶ and insinuates that therefore they must now exist somewhere among us. "These principles," he says, "are still at work."** When I appealed to my own peaceable behaviour, he replied, that " Guy Fawkes would have done the same;"tt plainly suggesting a comparison between him and me.

Both Dr. Croft and Mr. Madan represent in a most