industry. In the same year he presented a paper to the Royal Society entitled "Observations on Different Kinds of Air," which secured for him the Copley medal.
Having published a method of preventing scurvy, a proposition was made to Priestley that he should accompany Captain Cook in his second voyage to the South Seas. It was accepted, but not confirmed by the Board of Longitude. On the Board were many clergymen, and no doubt they were against Priestley's "religious principles."
In 1772 Priestley was appointed librarian to Lord Shelburne (afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne) at a salary of £250 a year, a house, and an annuity for life. He remained in the service of his lordship for seven years, living sometimes at Calne, and sometimes in London; and during this time he travelled in Germany and Holland, and in 1774 visited Paris, where he made the acquaintance of Lavoisier and other French savants. Why Priestley severed his connection with Lord Shelburne will never be exactly known, but his lordship treated him with the greatest kindness and consideration.
The publication of Priestley's Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit in 1777 brought him much odium theologicum, because it was a powerful exposition of materialism. Critics denounced him as an atheist, as an infidel, and other epithets were hurled at him from all parts of the country. It is probable that this denunciation was the cause of Priestley leaving the service of Lord
