144

ADDRESSES TO DR. PRIESTLEY.

indecent treatment! then, indeed, would the empire of true religion exert itself, the empire of charity and philanthropy; for it is by their fruit ye shall know them, and not by the empty profeffion of "PHILIP PEACEABLE," or Philip Religious. The belief of a man depends upon causes not within his own control; but his actions are his own, and for them and them only ought he to be accountable. Let Philip Peaceable and "the stranger" be weighed in a balance, and then fee who would be found wanting. ANTI BIGOT.

Philadelphia, June 25, 1794.

OBSERVA

INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS

TO THE GAZETTEERS

OF THE

CITY OF PHILADELPHIA.

GENTLEMEN,

WHEN this pamphlet first made its appearance in this city, you all agreed that it might do well enough in the defpotic ftates of Europe; but that it was by no means fit for the meridian of the United States. And you have very lately obliged the public with the copy of a letter from Liverpool, in which you say, the writer obferves, that the Obfervations on the Emigration of Doctor Jofeph Priestley have been republished there, and that "it is one of the most scandalous publications that ever iffued from any prefs.'

These are rather hard lines, Gentlemen. I do not know what I have done, thus to draw down your vengeance on me. 'Tis true I cannot, like you, take towns and islands as faft as Father Luke takes fnuff, or erect a bridge across the English Channel, with as little trouble as fome people can the bridge of a fiddle; I cannot put dukes into iron cages, and fend them to Paris for mocking-birds, or chop away at the heads of kings and minifters with as little ceremony as if I were chopping a stick of wood; nor can I fpread fleets over the ocean, and religion, peace, and plenty,

over a country as quick as a furgeon's 'prentice fpreads a plafter. No, Gentlemen, it is your province to perform feats like these; and, if I am not much deceived in my own heart, I am far, very far, from envying you your exalted stations. But, if you are ftrong, be merciful. Though you are the great Leviathans of literature, you may fuffer a poor herring to swim in the fame fea: there is certainly room enough for you and me too.

Was it well done, Gentlemen, first to play at football with a poor pamphlet till you were tired, and then turn it into a fhuttlecock, and fet your devils to knocking it from one hemifphere to the other? Affuredly not; for though the work itself might merit rough treatment at your hands, yet, as it was in print, the natural affection that you must be fuppofed to bear your typographical brethren, ought to have awakened in you fome compaffion towards it.

You have had the goodness to inform the public, that this work is neither fit for the meridian of the United States, nor the meridian of Great Britain; but it appears that the public (in this country at leaft) think otherwife. How the public dare to differ from you in opinion, I fhall not pretend to fay: but certain it is, that the numerous applications for this pamphlet, have induced me to publifh, with your leave, a third edition of it.

To render this edition more worthy the perufal of your Honours than the laft, I have made a confiderable addition, which I have been able to do, from my being now in poffeffion of fome curious facts concerning the Doctor's emigration, which were un known on this fide the water when the first edition was published.

I obey the call for this edition with more pleasure, as it furnishes me with an opportunity of proving. beyond contradiction, many things, which fome people have looked upon as very "hazarded affertions,"