Richard Price Papers, American Philosophical Society

The Welsh non-conformist minister Richard Price (1723-1791) was a moral philosopher and political and economic theorist whose ideas leant support to the American cause during the Revolution. A broad and liberal mind, he was an integral member of the intellectual coterie surrounding William Petty, the Earl of Shelburne, and was a founding member of the Unitarian Church.

Befitting a latitudinarian thinker, the range of Richard Price's correspondence is extremely broad, touching upon his rationalistic philosophy and dissenting theology, his political views on British politics, America and the American Revolution, the Constitutional settlement, the future of the United States, social reform, demography, prisons, and slavery. The ninety letters in the collection are arranged chronologically, with correspondents including Charles Chauncy (8 letters, 1772-1779), Benjamin Franklin (7 letters, 1775-1789), John Howard (11 letters and a biographical manuscript, 1770-1789), Thomas Jefferson (3 letters, 1785-1789), Benjamin Rush (8 letters, 1786-1790), and Edward Wigglesworth (3 letters, 1775-1786), as well as lesser known figures like the reformer John Howard.

Background note

The son of a harsh Calvinist Congregational minister in the Welsh heartland, Richard Price followed in his father's footsteps in profession only, becoming a leading advocate of a liberal Christianity and a supporter of republican and revolutionary values. Born in 1723 in Glamorgan, Price was educated at a succession of dissenting academies before establishing himself as chaplain to Mr. Streatfield at Stoke Newington and filling in at a variety of dissenting pulpits in the vicinity of London. The door from this seemingly obscure position, however, opened through Price's formidable literary and intellectual skills.

In his first and most widely known work, Review of the Principal Questions in Morals (London, 1758), written the same year that he married Sarah Blundell and settled at Newington Green, Price pitted himself against the moral philosophy of Frances Hutcheson, arguing that morality is intrinsic to human action and that good and evil could be ascertained through reason and individual conscience alone, without the need to posit the existence of a separate moral sense. In later works such as Importance of Christianity (London, 1766), Price built upon this rationalistic moral edifice, rejecting the concepts of original sin and eternal punishment, further distinguishing his thought from the orthodoxy. Together with his friend, Joseph Priestly, Price became one of the preeminent spokesmen for "rational dissent" in the 1760s and 1770s, and his works found a wide readership. Through his endeavors he became an intimate correspondent of several of the leading intellectual figures in England and America, including David Hume, Benjamin Franklin, Mary Wollstonecraft, and the Earl of Shelburne. In testimony to his stature, Price was admitted to the Royal Society in 1765 and received a doctorate of divinity from Aberdeen in 1767.

Price's reputation was founded not only upon his contributions to moral and religious philosophy, but to his pioneering interest in finance, economy, and insurance. He published an important work on life expectancy in the Philosophical Transactions for 1769, and his pamphlet, Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt (London, 1771) lambasted the growth of the public debt, propelling William Pitt to make serious efforts toward its eradication. Among his other works, Observations on Reversionary Payments (1771) fleshed out a practical system for life-insurance and pensions, and his Essay on the Population of England (1780) was an important effort in its genre.

Politically and religiously, Price was a throughgoing liberal. During the American Revolution, he was one of the most strident and consistent voices in England opposing war against the Americans. His Observations on Civil Liberty and the Justice and Policy of the War with America (London, 1776) sold remarkably well, earning accolades and broadsides intermittently, and for this and the unqualified support he tendered the American cause, Congress invited him to emigrate in 1778 and assume responsibilities for overseeing American finances. Price wisely declined. After the war, his popularity soared on both sides of the Atlantic, but his health soon failed. He lived to see the painful political process in the United States conclude in the ratification of the Constitution and to witness the early, optimistic phases of the Revolution in France, a "glorious" one in his eyes, without experiencing either the depths of French Revolutionary violence or the English backlash against political and religious unorthodoxy. A founding member of the Unitarian Society in 1791, Price died on twenty fifth anniversary of Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1791.

Scope and content

Befitting a latitudinarian thinker, the range of Richard Price's correspondence is extremely broad, touching upon his rationalistic philosophy and dissenting theology, his political views on America and the American Revolution, the Constitutional settlement, and his interest in social reform. The ninety letters in the collection are arranged chronologically, with correspondents including Charles Chauncy (8 letters, 1772-1779), Benjamin Franklin (7 letters, 1775-1789), John Howard (11 letters and a biographical manuscript, 1770-1789), Thomas Jefferson (3 letters, 1785-1789), Benjamin Rush (8 letters, 1786-1790), and Edward Wigglesworth (3 letters, 1775-1786).

At the heart of the Price collection are 31 letters written to and from America during the Revolutionary crisis. Typical of these are the eight long and candid letters written by the firebrand Boston clergyman, Charles Chauncy between 1772 and 1779. Presciently, Chauncy wrote in 1772 that politics had degenerated to such an extent that "The alternative now seems to be, a submission to slavery, or an exertion of our selves to be delivered from it," and predicting "that half a Century will so increase our numbers and strength, as to put it in the power of New England only to tell any Tyrants in Great Britain in plain english, that they will be a free people, in opposition to all they can do to prevent it." In these early letters (1774-1775), the revolutionary rhetoric, set within a solidly religious, if not millenarian framework is distinctive, and between the letters of Chauncy, John Winthrop, Ezra Stiles, and other New Englanders, the collection provides a detailed view of the flashpoint of the revolution at the moment of its ignition. Winthrop's extraordinary letter of June 6, 1775, provides a thorough recounting of Lexington and Concord and their aftermath.

For his part, drafts of several of Price's letters to America demonstrate the depth of his sympathy with the Revolutionary struggle and his intellectual integrity in the face of a critical situation. Price derided the official response to the martial crisis in Massachusetts and remained committed to the revolutionary cause to the end, imaging himself in June, 1777, as standing "in the Situation of a Silent Spectator waiting with inexpressible anxiety the issue of one of the most important Struggles that ever took place among mankind."

The slightly more numerous post-Revolutionary letters concern adjustments to the new political process in America, life expectancy (see Edward Wigglesworth), Italy and prisons (John Howard), the ratification of the Constitution (Franklin, Rush, and Jefferson), the French Revolution (Jefferson), and the impact of Price's seminal Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution, in which, among other things, he condemned slavery. Jefferson's response to the pamphlet displays him at his ambiguous best, grasping at the twin horns of slavery and liberty. While opposition to the work would be strong in the south, Jefferson wrote, "Northward of the Chesapeake you may find here and there an opponent to your doctrine as you may find here and there a robber and a murderer, but in no great number, in that part of America, there being but few slaves, they can easily disencumber themselves of them, and emancipation is put into such a train that in a few years there will be no slaves Northward of Maryland." As for Virginia, he placed his hopes in the rising generation who "have sucked in the principles of liberty as it were with their mother's milk."

Administrative information

Restrictions

None.

Provenance

Accessioned, 1951.

Preferred citation

Cite as: Richard Price Papers, American Philosophical Society.

Additional information

Related material

The Printed Materials department includes numerous editions of most of Price's major works, including:

Additional Observations on the Nature and Value of Civil Liberty, and the War with America (London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1777)
An Appeal to the Public, on the Subject of the National Debt (London: T. Cadell, 1772)
A Discourse on the Love of our Country: Delivered on Nov. 4, 1789 (London: T. Cadell, 1790)
An Essay on the Population of England (London: T. Cadell, 1780)
Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution, and the Means of Making it a Benefit to the World (London, 1784)
Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty (London: T. Cadell, 1776)

References

Peach, W. Bernard, and D.O. Thomas, eds., The Correspondence of Richard Price, 3 vols. (1983).

Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, ser. 2, 17 (1903): 263-278.