Joseph Priestley and Dissent - Political Adviser To Lord Shelburne

Political Adviser To Lord Shelburne

Priestley also served as a kind of political adviser to Lord Shelburne while he working for him as a tutor and librarian; he gathered information for him on parliamentary issues and served as a conduit of information for Dissenting and American interests. Priestley published several political works during these years, most of which were focused on the rights of dissenters, such as An Address to Protestant Dissenters . . . on the Approaching Election of Members of Parliament (1774). This pamphlet was published anonymously and Schofield calls it "the most outspoken of anything he ever wrote." Priestley called on Dissenters to vote against those in Parliament who had, by refusing to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts, denied them their rights. He wrote a second part dedicated to defending the rebelling American colonists at the behest of Benjamin Franklin and John Fothergill. The pamphlets created a stir throughout Britain but the results of the election did not favor Shelburne's party.