Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/68

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48
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

ficulty made his way to Italy. On his return to England in 1794 his father had serious apprehensions lest he should be prosecuted, and contemplated shipping him to Northern Europe or America; for though young Watt (by this time twenty-five years of age) had broken off correspondence with France, he was still a Radical, and deemed it an honour to dine with two of the "acquitted felons" of the 1794 trials. He was, however, left unmolested, went back after a time to Birmingham, succeeded to his father's business, and in 1817 was the first to cross the Channel and ascend the Rhine to Coblenz by steam. He lived till June 1848, thus hearing of the proclamation of the second Republic, after having witnessed the virtual establishment of the first.

His old colleague. Cooper, emigrated to America, was the neighbour there of Dr. Priestley, and edited a newspaper. Its attacks on the American Administration were mistakenly attributed to Priestley, who consequently incurred some danger of expulsion as an alien. Cooper, with truly American versatility, ultimately became a judge, and died in 1829, at the age of sixty-nine.

Paul Jones, as a Scotchman by birth, should not be passed over, albeit he appeared before the Assembly as an American. He was one of a deputation of Americans who, on the 10th July 1790, offered their congratulations; but the spokes-