Letter from John Anderson Collins, London, [England], to Maria Weston Chapman, Dec. 3'd, 1840
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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."...
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Digital CommonwealthKeywords
- Abolitionists
- Antislavery Movements
- Birney, James Gillespie 1792 1857
- Boston
- Chapman, Maria Weston 1806 1885
- Collins, John A. (John Anderson) 1810 1879
- Correspondence
- Garrison, William Lloyd 1805 1879
- Great Britain
- History
- Martineau, Harriet 1802 1876
- Massachusetts
- Nichol, Elizabeth Pease 1807 1897
- Scoble, John 1799 1877
- Slaver
- Stanton, Henry B. (Henry Brewster) 1805 1887
- Stuart, Charles 1783? 1865
- Thompson, George 1804 1878
- United States
- Women
- Women Abolitionists