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Holograph, signed.The pages of this letter are numbered out of sequence.Richard Davis Webb wonders at the "unreserved exultation on the part of many out and out friends of nonresistance among the abolitionists at the opening of a long and bloody struggle." Richard D. Webb thinks that "there was no sufficient provocation for the outbursts of anger in the United States at the neutral position of England... since the struggle on the part of the free states has never yet taken the aspect of an antislavery struggle on the part either of the government or the people." Nevertheless, Richard D. Webb believes that the great majority of people who had any opinion are in favor of the free states. The cotton interest is powerful. A strong feeling prevails in England that American newspaper editors are bound to pick a quarrel with her. Richard D. Webb does not wonder at this, as so large a portion of the American population are Irish who hate England. He gives the opinion of Dr. (George Barrel) Cheever that thousands of Democrats who fell into the popular cry after the fall of Fort Sumter would gladly coalesce with the Southerners again if they dared. Dr. Cheever praised Wendell Phillips and spoke of the "shuffling expediency of H.W. Beecher." Richard D. Webb's family had a long visit from Mattie Griffith, the author of "Autobiography of a Female Slave," who liberated her own slaves. He tells of a visit at Miss Estlin's and of her project to publish...

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Boston Public Library

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