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776 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

James Priestley’ suggested to him to apply for the place.
The objections were raised that he waa not a native, and
‘was not of the President’s political views. Dr. Priestley
thought such objections of little moment. For, said he, if
Mr. Adams means to be the ruler of a nation and not the
leader of a party, he will be glad of a chance to show it. A
letter was, therefore, written by Dr. Priestley to the Presi-
dent presenting Cooper’s name for the place. With it went
one from Cooper himself. The office was given to another,
and no answer to either letter was ever received. Cooper
then set up a newspaper, warmly supported the Republican
cause, and opposed the administration of President Adama
A reader of a rival newspaper wrote a letter in which he

tone, and showing that if he had added nothing to the sprightlinese,
he had lost nothing of the fire, of the pamphleteer of 1795-1800. He
died in 1840, when engaged in revising the South Carolina statutes,
a duty charged on him by the legislatare, after having published,
besides numberless tracts on politica, divinity, and metaphysics, a
treatise on the bankrupt laws, a translation of Justinian, a treatise
on political economy, a manual of chemistry, as well as a general
compendium of useful information,”

> Prresriey, Josep. (1733-1804.) Born Bristol, England, “Oa
the fourteenth day of January, 1791, an angry Birmingham mob
had fired the doctor’s house and burned it with all the books and
apparatus it contained, Smarting under his wrongs, Priestley eol-
lected what property remained to him and sought refuge in the
United States, Had he come a few years earlier or a few years
later, & dozen lines in the Daily Advertiser would, undoubtedly,
have been thought all his arrival deserved. Bunt he landed in 1794
when the inaolence, the injustice, the high-handed outrages of British
officials had driven the Republicans into all manner of foolish acts.
That he was the greatest of all chemista then living; that he had
won the Copley medal; had discovered oxygen gas, earbonie-acid
gaa, nitrous-oxide gas, sulphurous-oxide gus, and had proved that
the red color of arterial blood is due to the oxygen of the air, was
to the Republicans of small moment. That he bad answered Burke’s
Reflections’ and been maltreated by an English mob, was, how-
ever, of the greatest moment. It gave a new opportunity to ex-
press the flerce hatred they felt toward England, and they gladly
seized it, They hailed him as a martyr and overwhelmed him with
attention. The Democratic Society addressed him. The Tammany
Society addressed him, The Associated Teachers and the Republi-
ean natives of Engiand and Ireland got up demonstrations in his
behalf.” MeMaster, Hist. People of the U. 5., Vol. 2, p, 207.

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