the Trinity, and instead offered a form of religious faith "founded in reason". The rejection of the established church, and of religious hierarchies, was also central to Hazlitt's doctrine. He even called on parliament to adopt his form of Unitarianism, revealing the extent to which his religious beliefs had a politically radical edge. The literary critic Tom Paulin has also highlighted Hazlitt's political radicalism, associating him with the "Real Whig" political tendency that developed from the commonwealthmen of the seventeenth century, and which was characterised by republican beliefs. A friend of Hazlitt described him as "an ultra-Dissenter, and in politics a republican". In 1780 Hazlitt returned to Ireland, ministering to a congregation at Bandon in County Cork for three years. Another son, Thomas, was born soon after the Hazlitts' arrival in 1780; he survived only a few weeks. A daughter, Harriet, was born in late 1781 or early 1782. During this time Hazlitt exposed in the press the abuse of American prisoners of war at Kinsale prison, which led to the replacement of the regiment accused of perpetrating the abuses. He also defended Roman Catholics from violent abuse by British soldiers. However, the consequence of this was that Hazlitt himself became the target of abuse, it being reported that people cried out "beware of the black rebel" when he walked down the street. America, 1783–6 Hazlitt's sympathy with the American cause, and the threats of physical harm which he received in Ireland, led him to emigrate to America in April 1783, sailing on the first ship which departed following the conclusion of the American Revolutionary War. The Hazlitt family first lived in Philadelphia, where they were doubly stricken with loss. Harriet died in June at about eighteen months old. Another daughter, Esther, the last of the seven Hazlitt children, was born a few weeks later, only to die in September. Their loss was noted to have deeply affected their father. Hazlitt failed to find a post as a minister in Philadelphia, and Duncan Wu has argued that this influenced the condemnatory tone of Hazlitt's preface to his edited collection of three pamphlets by Joseph Priestley. The collection was issued by Robert Bell, the publisher of Thomas Paine's Common Sense. Indeed, the publication of Hazlitt's edition of Priestley's writings was motivated by the need to publish a profitable work, which would make up for the losses that Common Sense incurred. Hazlitt