[Letter to] My Dear Caroline
Contributors: Weston, Caroline, 1808-1882, recipient
Series: Caroline Weston Correspondence (1834-1874)
Published: 1841
Place of publication: Georgetown, Demerara, [Guyana, South America]
Language: eng
Format: [manuscript]
Subjects: Correspondence; Freedmen; Women abolitionists; History; Slavery; Antislavery movements
Notes: Holograph, signed.

Having left New England suddenly, Richard Hildreth has not abandoned the field, but intends to write. His aim is "a total revolution in the whole system of philosophy relative to man considered as an intellectual & active being." Richard Hildreth wants to apply to the study of man's nature the same inductive method that has been successfully used in "natural philosophy." He discusses the difficulties encountered in his studies and the disappointment "at the scandalous misbehavior of my temperance people whom I had enlisted into a party" and brought about an attack of low spirits. But the "curative effect" of the climate here has exceeded his expectations, and he has resumed his scientific work. Richard Hildreth gives the titles of the eight treatises in which his philosophy of human nature is to set forth. Meanwhile, Hildreth is collecting facts on the results of emancipation in the West Indies. He believes that those free colored people in the United States who are skilled in agriculture or mechanic arts or who have some capital would benefit greatly from emigrating to Jamaica, Trinidad, or Guiana. Hildreth writes: "It is probable that this colony will shortly appropriate a considerable sum of money to pay the expense of immigrants to Guiana."