than ever before was given by Joseph Priestley more than a
hundred years ago to a public not yet prepared for the re
ception of ideas so advanced as these.
I have said that un his labors by his freedom in pro
claiming his broad views Priestly had succeeded in making
many enemies; but to no violent outbreak did their wrath
give way until July the fourteenth, seventeen hundred and
ninety-one. Sitting peacefully in his home at Birmingham,
at which place he was now pastor after similar labor at
Needham,' Nantwich, and Leeds, librarian and secretary to
Lord' Shelburne, and tutor in languages at Warrington
Academy, he and his family were aroused from the quietude
of their fireside communion by a wild and ominous roar, as
of a mighty maddeud bull. Before they could recover from
their first surprise, a howling mob of fanactical Englishmen,
fired by a religious fanaticism that prevaded all Engand
and by the incarnate devil of rapacity and revenge, desirous
of showing’ in.some way their disapproval of Priestley’s un-
English views on this the anniversary of the downfall of the
Bastile, pounced like an enraged lion upon defenceless prey,
upon the Priestley home and chapel, burning, pillaging, and
destroyingthe works of a lifetime. Library, chapel, labora
tory, apparatus, and many valuable specimens perished like
somuclx tinder. But while a brutal English mob in an hour
ot political madness and religious frenzy could do all this it
could not stay the indomitable energy of this genius nor di
minish the lustre of his brain-won renown.
Aided by friends Priestley and his family were enabled
to escape to London and after three years of not too pleasant
labor in-charge of a pastorate at the Mill Hall chapel, he
set sail on April the fourth, seventeen hundred and ninety
four, for America, the home of the oppressed, a refuge from
the turmoil, of English life, and a spot in which he might
spend the remainder of his alloted years in peace arid quiet.
After a tiresome voyage of six weeks duration he landed at
Joseph Priestley.