ccept, I pray you, the assurances of my high consideration and constant
esteem.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CCLXXIX.--TO DOCTOR JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, March 21, 1801

TO DOCTOR JOSEPH PRIESTLEY.

Washington, March 21, 1801.

Dear Sir,

I learned some time ago that you were in Philadelphia, but that it was
only for a fortnight; and I supposed you were gone. It was not till
yesterday I received information that you were still there, had been
very ill, but were on the recovery. I sincerely rejoice that you are
so. Yours is one of the few lives precious to mankind, and for the
continuance of which every thinking man is solicitous. Bigots may be
an exception. What an effort, my dear Sir, of bigotry in politics
and religion have we gone through. The barbarians really flattered
themselves they should be able to bring back the times of Vandalism,
when ignorance put every thing into the hands of power and priestcraft.
All advances in science were proscribed as innovations. They pretended
to praise and encourage education, but it was to be the education of our
ancestors. We were to look backwards not forwards for improvement: the
President himself declaring in one of his answers to addresses, that
we were never to expect to go beyond them in real science. This was the
real ground of all the attacks on you: those who live by mystery and
charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the
Christian philosophy, the most sublime and benevolent but most perverted
system that ever shone on man, endeavored to crush your well-earned
and well-deserved fame. But it was the Lilliputians upon Gulliver. Our
countrymen have recovered from the alarm into which art and industry had
thrown them; science and honesty are replaced on their high ground; and
you, my dear Sir, as their great apostle, are on its pinnacle. It is
with heartfelt satisfaction that, in the first moments of my public
action, I can hail you with welcome to our land, tender to you the
homage of its respect and esteem, cover you under the protection of
those laws which were made for the wise and good like you, and disclaim
the legitimacy of that libel on legislation, which under the form of a
law was for some time placed among them.*

[* In the margin, is written by the author, 'Alien law.']

As the storm is now subsiding and the horizon becoming serene, it is
pleasant to consider the phenomenon with attention. We can no longer
say there is noth