[Letter to] My dear Friend
Contributors: Chapman, Maria Weston, 1806-1885, recipient
Series: Maria Weston Chapman Correspondence (1835-1885)
Published: 1840
Place of publication: London, [England]
Language: eng
Format: [manuscript]
Subjects: Correspondence; Women abolitionists; Antislavery movements; Abolitionists; History
Notes: Holograph, signed.

John Anderson Collins is homesick, having met with discouragement from almost every quarter. Collins comments: "Even R.R. Gurley, of colonization memory, can gain a hearing among abolitionists, who treat me with comparative contempt." He describes his voyage on the British Queen. Collins has called on John Bowring, William H. Ashhurst, and Professor William Adam. On the road to Edinburgh, Collins visited the Peases; Elizabeth Pease [Nichol] was like an oasis in the desert. He also visited Harriet Martineau. George Thompson was almost the only one who gave John A. Collins encouragement. H.B. Stanton, J.G. Birney, and John Scoble were scheming to cripple Thompson's influence in Edinburgh, and Charles Stuart was travelling "to sift in new organization." A rumor circulated that William Lloyd Garrison was a Socinian and "in that place nothing that could be said of him, could have murdered his influence more than this." John A. Collins reports on the meetings of committees of the men's and women's societies in Edinburgh, where Stuart represented the opposition and Thompson, Charles L. Remond, John A. Collins discussed the old and new organization. The women, prejudiced by the men, were "horrified" when John A. Collins exposed the treachery of the new organizers. John A. Collins analyzes the character of George Thompson, whom he considers a "creature of circumstances." After another committee meeting at which Stuart and John A. Collins spoke, Collins "had broken down that prejudice & to a considerable extent I flatter myself a good state of feeling was produced." He recommends Mrs. Harriet Gairdener as a valuable correspondent. In London, John A. Collins is negotiating with Thomas Fowell Buxton and the Duchess of Sutherland.