Letter from Samuel May, Leicester, Massachusetts, to John Bishop Estlin, Feb. 26, 1846

May criticizes William Lloyd Garrison's publication of a note from Mrs. Fry that was sent to him. He comments on the way Northerners living in the South praise the hospitality of the slaveholders. May recommends Henry Clarke Wright to Estlin and expresses respect for Wright's "uncompromising spirit." He also praises Samuel Joseph May as "full of kindness to every human being." May sends Estlin a copy of "A Discourse on the Life and Character of the Reverend Henry Ware." He complains of the Unitarian refusal to allow Samuel Joseph May's eulogy of Charles Theodore Follen to be given in William Ellery Channing's meeting house. May criticizes President James K. Polk's settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute. He discusses clairvoyance and Edgar Allan Poe before condemning the Scotch Free Church for accepting money from slaveholders. He praises John Angell James' "Duties and Derelictions of the Church," and the works of William Jay of Bath.
Courtesy of Boston Public Library