[Letter to] My dear Friend
Contributors: Weston, Caroline, 1808-1882, recipient
Series: Caroline Weston Correspondence (1834-1874)
Published: 1861
Place of publication: Dublin, [Ireland]
Language: eng
Format: [manuscript]
Number of pages: 10
Subjects: Correspondence; Women abolitionists; Antislavery movements; Trent Affair, 1861; History
Notes: Holograph, signed.

Richard Davis Webb presumably wrote this letter to Caroline Weston. Richard D. Webb defends the British attitude toward the Civil War and thinks that Caroline Weston has "not sufficient grounds for forming a reliable estimate of the English people." Caroline Weston's intercourse has been with "the artistocratic & upper commercial class who have been most exposed to evil [pro-slavery] influence." The pro-slavery sympathy is provoked by the "hatred & contempt of England which American papers exhibit." The hostility to England is kept alive by popular celebrations and "self laudatory orations." Richard D. Webb "can't see that the northern chance of success is likely to be greater than that of the English in 1781."He believes that the prevalent English feeling respecting the Trent affair is one of regret. He discusses the case. Richard D. Webb believes that if the war had been a bona fide anti-slavery war, it would have called forth a degree of enthusiasm in England. Webb believes "great dissatisfaction was felt in England at the horrible tariff." Richard D. Webb and his wife are helping to edit Mary Leadbeaters's annals and correspondence.

The Trent Affair mentioned in this letter refers to an incident in which Captain Charles Wilkes seized the British ship Trent and captured the Confederates James Murray Mason and John Slidell, who were sent as Confederate emissaries to England.