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of the peace for the county of Worcester, in which his house at Showel Green, near Birmingham, was situated; but the mention of it in this connection serves to illustrate another trait of his generous and benevolent nature, displaying a degree of fortitude, firmness, and undaunted resolution the most praiseworthy and admirable.

Here was a striking instance of a good man suffering not only in contempt of his goodness and excellence, but absolutely in consequence of it. He espoused a cause the most friendly to the best interests of mankind, and patronized a gentleman who was as upright and zealous an advocate for that cause as himself; but, on these accounts, he was stigmatized as an enemy to the rights of mankind and the welfare of his country; and the storm which seemed designed to overwhelm his friend, involved him in its rage, and exposed him to a cruel and lamentable interruption of his peace, his business, and his usefulness. Thinking it not safe to continue in the vicinity of Birmingham, or disgusted with the brutal treatment he met with, he repaired with

his family to London; whence, after a short stay, during which he waited upon the Prime Minister, and received from him an assurance of his desire, that the sufferers should be indemnified, he directed his steps to the neighbourhood of Gloucester.

He now, however, felt himself in great measure out of his element. The ferment which arose to so fearful an excess in Birmingham, affected, in different degrees, the whole nation, and rendered our Philanthropist unable to exert himself to any considerable advantage in those ways which were most congenial to his active and beneficent disposition. He accordingly turned his attention to those distant regions whither his much injured friend had been obliged to fly; and having some important mercantile concerns unsettled in America, he resolved to migrate thither and leave a country which had made him so ungrateful a return for his best services, and had requited him evil for the good he had done. In pursuance of this resolution, he embarked with his family August 1794, (being then in his 54th year), for the State of Maryland; but at this place he did not arrive till the autumn

of the following year, being unhappily taken prisoner soon after leaving Falmouth by a French Squadron, and carried into Brest.

Often has he been heard to relate the very uncomfortable situation in which he was then placed-how little distinction was made between him and the lowest of the persons who were captured with him, and the extreme difficulty he had, notwithstanding the immediate intercession of the American minister in his behalf, to be permitted to proceed on his voyage. Almost indescribable are the hardships and mortifications which he sustained during a detention of nearly thirteen months. In addition to this, he used to lament the failure of a negotiation into which he, with some of his friends, had entered into for the purchase of a considerable tract of land in America, designed to afford an asylum for all persons whose civil or religious sentiments were discountenanced and persecuted by the government at home.

When he was fixed on the Western Continent he resumed, as far as he was able,

his strenuous endeavours to be serviceable to his fellow-creatures; and, in the course of the five years he spent there, he was honourably noticed by some of the most distinguished characters, especially by the illustrious founder of American independence. With General Washington, Mr. Jefferson the President, Dr. Priestley, and other most respectable persons, he formed or renewed an acquaintance, and corresponded with them in a free and friendly

manner.

In compensation for a considerable debt owing to him by an American gentleman, he had an estate assigned him in the Province of Normandy, in France. This it was natural for him to wish to visit, and his family being anxious to exchange their present residence for the shores of their native country, the storm of political persecution having in a great measure subsided, he consented to return with them upon the condition of himself and his son landing on the French coast, and spending a few months there in examining the property of which

he was become the possessor.—But here disappointment thwarted his views again. When he wished to join that part of his family which had returned to England, and which had been increased since he left home by the marriage of his eldest daughter with a respectable English gentleman, the proscription issued against his countrymen in 1802, prevented his proceeding, which was the more extraordinary from his being beyond the age of those persons to whom the proscription was avowedly designed to attach. He could obtain no other favour than leave to retire to his estate in the neighbourhood of Ardennes, in Normandy, where he continued to reside during the remainder of the war, or between twelve and thirteen years.

In this place his characteristic benevolence had ample scope for its exertion, and it shone out with peculiar lustre. The lower orders of the people around him were reduced to very abject poverty by the revolutionary war, and the greatest distress prevailed amongst them. The Catholic

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