[Letter to] My dear Friend
Contributors: Weston, Caroline, 1808-1882, recipient
Series: Caroline Weston Correspondence (1834-1874)
Published: 1862
Place of publication: Greenfield, Kilgobbin, Co[unty] Dublin, [Ireland]
Language: eng
Format: [manuscript]
Number of pages: 12
Subjects: Correspondence; Women abolitionists; Antislavery movements; History
Notes: Holograph, signed.

Richard Davis Webb presumably wrote this letter to Caroline Weston. Webb objects to Caroline Weston's condemnation of the British for their attitude toward the American Civil War. He thinks the British don't understand American politics and their opinions on this subject are strongly influenced by American visitors who have defended or apologized for slavery and have represented the abolitionists as foolish, irreligious, meddling fanatics. The British derive a vindictive pleasure from seeing the United States with a rebellion on her hands after having freed herself from England by this means. The North is not officially interested in freeing the slaves. The northern Democratic editors hate the abolitionists worse than they do the secessionists. Webb mentions William Dawes of Oberlin who thought that temperance prevailed in Ireland. Webb comments on newspaper writers and points out that the French, who have shown less favor to the North, are flattered, while the English get abuse. He believes that there is nobody in Europe who has done as much as Harriet Martineau to promote the anti-slavery cause in England. Webb writes: "No, not George Thompson, General [Thomas Perronet] Thompson, John Bright & Richard Cobden rolled into one" have done as much for the anti-slavery cause. Webb regards Mrs. Maria Weston Chapman "as the largest minded mortal of whom I have any knowledge." Professor John Elliott Cairnes is writing a book "on the other side" of the Civil War. [John Elliott Cairnes wrote The Slave Power: It's Character, Career, & Probable Designs: Being an Attempt to Explain the Real Issues Involved in the American Contest, London, 1862.] Richard D. Webb is printing the book and is supplying the facts and documents. Webb invites Caroline Weston to his house, where she will find his wife good company.

Includes a fragment by an unknown person regarding the provenance of this letter that says "Parts of notes and letters not dated to different members, Caroline Weston, of the Weston family from R. D. Webb." Several of these words have been crossed out.