Priestley seems to have yearned for a more cosmopolitan community than Northumberland provided, writing to his sister that it was "seemingly almost out of the world" and complaining that he had to wait a week for news. He wrote to his friend John Vaughan: "We know but little more than we did when we left you of European affairs." In the winter of 1794–95, Priestley wrote to friends that his situation was very "distant from my original views" and "my time here is far from passing so agreeably as it did in England", yet he was "very thankful for such an asylum" and he attempted "to make the best of my situation". In his letters to friends back in Britain, Priestley consistently referred to himself as an exile and to England as his real home. Mary was happier with the couple's situation and wrote to William Vaughan: "I am happy and thankful to meet with so sweet a situation and so peaceful a retreat as the place I now write from. Dr. Priestley also likes it and of his own choice intends to settle here, which is more than I hoped for at the time we came up...This country is very delightful, the prospects of wood and water more beautiful than I have ever seen before and the people plain and decent in their manners."