DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I received your kind note with real pleasure, and
felt it very good of you to send me a copy of the "Atlantic Monthly"
with your noble letter to the women of England. I read every word of
it with an intense interest, and I am quite sure that its effect upon
opinion here has been marked and beneficial. It has covered some with
shame, and it has compelled many to think, and it has stimulated not a
few to act. Before this reaches you, you will have seen what large and
earnest meetings have been held in all our towns in favor of abolition
and the North. No town has a building large enough to contain those
who come to listen, to applaud, and to vote in favor of freedom and
the Union. The effect of this is evident on our newspapers and on the
tone of Parliament, where now nobody says a word in favor of
recognition, or mediation, or any such thing.
The need and duty of England is admitted to be a strict neutrality,
but the feeling of the millions of her people is one of friendliness
to the United States and its government. It would cause universal
rejoicing, among all but a limited circle of aristocracy and
commercially rich and corrupt, to hear that the Northern forces had
taken Vicksburg on the great river, and Charleston on the Atlantic,
and that the neck of the conspiracy was utterly broken.
I hope your people may have strength and virtue to win the great cause
intrusted to them, but it is fearful to contemplate the amount of the
depravity in the North engendered by the long power of slavery.
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