[Letter to] My dear Mrs. Chapman
Contributors: Chapman, Maria Weston, 1806-1885, recipient
Series: Maria Weston Chapman Correspondence (1835-1885)
Published: 1846
Place of publication: Bristol, [England]
Language: eng
Format: [manuscript]
Number of pages: 12
Subjects: Correspondence; Abolitionists; Women abolitionists; Liberator (Boston, Mass. : 1831.); History; Slavery; Antislavery movements
Notes: Holograph, signed.

John Bishop Estlin explains that it was his purpose to obtain information about American abolitionism to use in a little paper which he is preparing for the people of his neighborhood. He elucidates, throughout the letter, on the differences between the British and the American method of advocating for anti-slavery in public. A letter from a Mrs. Fry, which was sent to Mr. Samuel May, appeared in the Liberator on Jan. 30, though with the name suppressed. A liberal benefactor to the Boston fair, to whom John Bishop Estlin lent the Liberator, was shocked by the heading and the discussion of the "Rights of God" (the article so named in the paper) "and with Mr. Garrison's comments upon the whole affair." The separations and strong language of American abolitonists "appear to us like quarrelling," and the intolerance toward those holding other views "argues an unchristian spirit." He mentions the West Indian planters' adverse view of emancipation, and the exaggerated accounts of cruelties in the West Indies. He comments on the "angry, course tone" used in "Slavery as it is." He considers Garrison's taste in selecting subjects for his paper "quite extraordinary." He recommends the penny tracts of Messrs. Chambers for use in his latitude.