After some years Lord Shelburne began to be weary of his associate, and, on his expressing a wish to settle him in Ireland, Dr. Priestley of his own accord proposed a separation, to which his lordship consented, after settling on him an annuity of 150l., according to a previous stipulation. This annuity he continued regularly to pay during the remainder of the life of Dr. Priestley.
His income being much diminished by his separation from Lord Shelburne, and his family increasing, he found it now difficult to support himself. At this time Mrs. Rayner made him very considerable presents, particularly at one period a sum of 400l.; and she continued her contributions to him almost annually. Dr. Fothergill had proposed a subscription, in order that he might prosecute his experiments to their utmost extent, and be enabled to live without sacrificing his time to his pupils. This he accepted. It amounted at first to 40l. per annum, and was afterwards much increased. Dr. Watson, Mr. Wedgewood, Mr. Galton, and four or five more, were the gentlemen who joined with Dr. Fothergill in this generous subscription.
Soon after, he settled in a meeting-house in Birmingham, and continued for several years engaged in theological and chemical investigations. His apparatus, by the liberality of his friends, had become excellent, and his income was so good that he could prosecute his researches to their full extent. Here he published the three last volumes of his Experiments on Air, and various papers on the same subject in the Philosophical Transactions. Here, too, he continued his Theological Repository, and published a variety of tracts on his peculiar opinions in religion, and upon the history of the primitive church. He now unluckily engaged in controversy with the established clergy of the place; and expressed his opinions on political subjects with a degree of freedom, which, though it would have been of no consequence at any former period, was ill suited to the peculiar circumstances that were introduced into this country by the French revolution, and to the political maxims of Mr. Pitt and his administration. His answer to Mr. Burke's book on the French revolution excited the violent indignation of that extraordinary man, who inveighed against his character repeatedly, and with peculiar virulence, in the house of commons. The clergy of the church of England, too, who began about this time to be alarmed for their establishment, of which Dr. Priestley was the open enemy, were particularly active; the press teemed with their productions against him, and the minds of their hearers seem to have been artificially excited; indeed some of the anecdotes told of the conduct of the clergy of Birmingham, were highly unbecoming their character. Unfortunately, Dr. Priestley did not seem to be aware of the state of the nation, and of the plan of conduct laid down by Mr. Pitt and his political friends; and he was too fond of controversial discussions to yield tamely to the attacks of his antagonists.
These circumstances seem in some measure to explain the disgraceful riots which took place in Birmingham in 1791, on the day of the anniversary of the French revolution. Dr. Priestley's meeting-house and his dwelling-house were burnt; his library and apparatus destroyed, and many manuscripts, the fruits of several years of industry, were consumed in the conflagration. The houses of several of his friends shared the same fate, and his son narrowly escaped death, by the care of a friend who forcibly concealed him for several days. Dr. Priestley was obliged to make his escape to London, and a seat was taken for him in the mail-coach under a borrowed name. Such was the ferment against him that it was believed he would not have been safe any where else; and his friends would not allow him, for several weeks, to walk through the streets.
He was invited to Hackney, to succeed Dr. Price in the meeting-house of that place. He accepted the office, but such was the dread of his unpopularity, that nobody would let him a house, from an apprehension that it would be burnt by the populace as soon as it was known that he inhabited it. He was obliged to get a friend to take a lease of a house in another name; and it was with the utmost difficulty that he could prevail with the landlord to allow the lease to be transferred to him. The members of the Royal Society, of which he was a fellow, declined admitting him into their company; and he was obliged to withdraw his name from the society.
When we look back upon this treatment of a man of Dr. Priestley's character, after an interval of forty years, it cannot fail to strike us with astonishment; and it must be owned, I think, that it reflects an indelible stain upon that period of the history of Great Britain. To suppose that he was in the least degree formidable to so powerful a body as the church of England, backed as it was by the aristocracy, by the ministry, and by the opinions of the people, is perfectly ridiculous. His theological sentiments, indeed, were very different from those of the established church; but so were those of Milton, Locke, and Newton. Nay, some of the members of the church itself entertained opinions, not indeed so decided or so openly expressed as those of Dr. Priestley, but certainly having the same tendency. To be satisfied of this it is only necessary to recollect the book which Dr. Clarke published on the Trinity. Nay, some of the bishops, unless they are very much belied, entertained opinions similar to those of Dr. Clarke. The same observation applies to Dr. Lardner, Dr. Price, and many others of the dissenters. Yet, the church of England never attempted to persecute these respectable and meritorious men, nor did they consider their opinions as at all likely to endanger the stability of the church. Besides, Dr. Horsley had taken up the pen against Dr. Priestley's theological opinions, and had refuted them so completely in the opinion of the members of the church, that it was thought right to reward his meritorious services by a bishopric.
It could hardly, therefore, be the dread of Dr. Priestley's theological opinions that induced the clergy of the church of England to bestir themselves against him with such alacrity. Erroneous opinions advanced and refuted, so far from being injurious, have a powerful tendency to support and strengthen the cause which they were meant to overturn. Or, if there existed any latent suspicion that the refutation of Horsley was not so complete as had been alleged, surely persecution was not the best means of supporting weak arguments; and indeed it was rather calculated to draw the attention of mankind to the theological opinions of Priestley; as has in fact been the consequence.
Neither can the persecutions which Dr. Priestley was subjected to be accounted for by his political opinions, even supposing it not to be true, that in a free country like Great Britain, any man is at liberty to maintain whatever theoretic opinions of government he thinks proper, provided he be a peaceable subject and obey rigorously all the laws of his country.
Dr. Priestley was an advocate for the perfectibility of the human species, or at least its continually increasing tendency to improvement—a doctrine extremely pleasing in itself, and warmly supported by Franklin and Price; but which the wild principles of Condorcet, Godwin, and Beddoes at last brought into discredit. This doctrine was taught by Priestley in the outset of his Treatise on Civil Government, first published in 1768. It is a speculation of so very agreeable a nature, so congenial to our warmest wishes, and so flattering to the prejudices of humanity, that one feels much pain at being obliged to give it up. Perhaps it may be true, and I am willing to hope so, that improvements once made are never entirely lost, unless they are superseded by something much more advantageous, and that therefore the knowledge of the human race, upon the whole, is progressive. But political establishments, at least if we are to judge from the past history of mankind, have their uniform periods of progress and decay. Nations seem incapable of profiting by experience. Every nation seems destined to run the same career, and the history may be comprehended under the following heads: Poverty, liberty, industry, wealth, power, dissipation, anarchy, destruction. We have no example in history of a nation running through this career and again recovering its energy and importance. Greece ran through it more than two thousand years ago: she has been in a state of slavery ever since. An opportunity is now at last given her of recovering her importance: posterity will ascertain whether she will embrace it.
Dr. Priestley's short Essay on the First Principles of Civil Government was published in 1768. In it he lays down as the foundation of his reasoning, that "it must be understood, whether it be expressed or not, that all people live in society for their mutual advantage; so that the good and happiness of the members, that is the majority of the members of any state, is the great standard by which every thing relating to that state must be finally determined; and though it may be supposed that a body of people may be bound by a voluntary resignation of all their rights to a single person or to a few, it can never be supposed that the resignation is obligatory on their posterity, because it is manifestly contrary to the good of the whole that it should be so." From this first principle he deduces all his political maxims. Kings, senators, and nobles, are merely the servants of the public; and when they abuse their power, in the people lies the right of deposing and consequently of punishing them. He examines the expediency of hereditary sovereignty, of hereditary rank and privileges, of the duration of parliament, and of the right of voting, with an evident tendency to democratical principles, though he does not express himself very clearly on the subject.