ld in abject physical and mental slavery
by another. As for me, though the toilsome earning of my daily bread
were to be my lot again to-morrow, I should rejoice with unspeakable
thankfulness that we had not to answer for what I consider so grievous a
sin against humanity.

I believe many years will not pass before this cry ceases to go up from
earth to heaven. The power of opinion is working silently and strongly
in the hearts of men; the majority of people in the North of this
country are opposed to the theory of slavery, though they tolerate its
practice in the South: and though the natural selfishness with which men
cling to their interests is only at present increasing the vigilance of
the planters in guarding their property and securing their prey, it is a
property which is crumbling under their feet, and a prey which is
escaping from their grasp; and perhaps, before many years are gone by,
the black population of the South will be free, and we comparatively
poor people--Amen! with all my heart....

I had hoped to revisit England before the winter, ... but this cannot
be, and I shall certainly not see England this year, if ever again.... I
think women in England are gradually being done justice to, and many
sources of goodness, usefulness, and happiness, that have hitherto been
sealed, are opened to them now, by a truer and more generous public
feeling, and more enlightened views of education.

I saw a good deal of Harriet Martineau, and liked her very much indeed,
in spite of her radicalism. She is gone to the South, where I think she
cannot fail to do some good, if only in giving another impulse to the
stone that already topples on the brink--I mean in that miserable matter
of slavery.

Yours very truly,
F. A. B.

[No more striking instance can be given of the rapidity of movement,
if not of progress, of American public opinion, than the so-called
"Woman's Rights" question. When these letters were written, scarcely
a whisper had made itself heard upon this and its relative subjects:
the "Female Suffrage" was neither demanded nor desired; Margaret
Fuller had not made public her views upon the condition of "Woman in
the Nineteenth Century"; the different legislatures of the different
States had not found it expedient to enact statutes securing to
married women the independent use o