“Your faithful and affectionate friend,
“Matthew Boulton.”
—Boulton to Watt, junr., 26th December, 1789. Boulton MSS.
[ [335] Watt, junr. to Boulton, 26th March, 1789.
[ [336] ‘Life of Mary Ann Schimmelpenninck,’ 3rd ed., 1859, pp. 125–6.
[ [337] Ibid., p. 181.
[ [338] “The address of the Société des Amis de la Constitution de Bourdeaux” to the Revolutionary Society in London, dated the 21st May, 1791, contains the following passage:—“Le jour consacré à porter le deuil de M. Price [the Rev. Dr. Price recently dead,—an ardent admirer of the French Revolution in its early stages], nous avons entendu la lecture du Discours de M. l’Evêque d’Autun sur la Liberté des Cultes: on nous a fait ensuite le rapport des ouvrages de MM. Priestley et Payne qui ont vengé M. Price des ouvrages de M. Burke; et c’est ainsi que nous avons fait son oraison funèbre. Peut-être, Messieurs, apprendrez vous avec quelque intérêt, que nous avons inscrit dans la liste de nos Membres les noms de MM. Payne et Priestley; c’est l’hommage de notre estime, et l’estime d’hommes libres a toujours son prix.”
[ [339] The representation given above of Dr. Priestley’s house is taken from a rare book, entitled ‘Views of the Ruins of the principal Houses destroyed during the Riots at Birmingham, 1791.’ London, 1792.
[ [340] “At midnight,” says Hutton, “I could see from my house the flames of Bordesley Hall rise with dreadful aspect. I learned that after I quitted Birmingham the mob attacked my house there three times. My son bought them off repeatedly; but in the fourth, which began about nine at night, they laboured till eight the next morning, when they had so completely ravaged my dwelling that I write this narrative in a house without furniture, without roof, door, chimneypiece, window, or window-frame.”—‘The Life of William Hutton,’ written by himself. London, 1816.
[ [341] “Though our principles, which are well known, as friends to the established government and enemies of republican principles, should have been our protection from a mob whose watchword was Church and King, yet our safety was principally owing to most of the Dissenters living south of the town; for after the first moments they did not seem over nice in their discrimination of religion and principles. I, among others, was pointed out as a Presbyterian, though I never was in a meeting-house in Birmingham, and Mr. Boulton is well known as a Churchman. We had everything most portable packed up, fearing the worst. However, all is well with us.”—Watt to De Luc, 19th July, 1791.