Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

NORTHUMBERLAND, Sept. 1

To the PRINTER.

SIR,

I beg leave, through the channel of your paper, to give what satisfaction I can to many persons in this country, who are alarmed at the publication of an intercepted letter addressed to me by Mr. J. Stone at Paris, and enclosing another which I was to transmit to M. B. P. (which means a Member of the British Parliament) at Kennebeck. They were first printed in England, with a view to render me obnoxious here. Whether they ought to have this effect, let any impartial person judge from the following circumstances.

Mr. John Stone (not the person who was tried for high treason, and acquitted, in England, but his brother) was a member of my congregation at Hackney, and a zealous friend of the American and French revolutions, which sufficiently accounts for his corresponding with me. But I am not answerable for what he, or any other person, may think proper to write to me.

The letter enclosed to me is for Mr. Benjamin Vaughan, formerly a pupil of mine, and one to Mr. Samuel Vaughan, who sometime ago resided in Philadelphia. He, like me, thought it necessary to leave England, and for some time is said to have assumed a feigned name. This he does not do here, and he is a man that any country may be proud to possess; having for ability, knowledge of almost every kind, and the most approved integrity, very few equals.

He is well known to, and probably corresponds with, the President, who will smile at the fumes that have been thrown out on the subject. He has fixed his residence at Kennebeck because his family has large property there. If he or I had been a spy in the interest of France, we have made a very strange choice of situations in which to do mischief.

But trifles light as air,
Are to the jealous confirmations strong,
As proofs of holy writ.—Shakespeare.

I am, &c.

JOSEPH PRIESTLEY.

PENNSYLVANIA.