Letter from Samuel May, Leicester, Massachusetts, to John Bishop Estlin, April 29th, 1847

May recounts with fondness the beginnings of his correspondence with his Bristol friends, including Estlin, George Armstrong, William James, and Mary Carpenter. May tells of Frederick Douglass' return to the U.S. and of the hardships that Douglass endured on the journey when he was denied a berth on the steamship returning to America. May acknowledges receipt of pamphlets sent him by Estlin and states he will send books and pamphlets in return. May informs Estlin about the Wilmot Proviso and deplores the success of the American Army in Mexico. He discusses William P. Atkinson and the Unitarians. He says that no slaveholder will hold office in the American Unitarian Association. May tells Estlin that Dr. Ezra S. Gannet has begun to support the abolition cause in lieu of his previous assertion that the North should remain silent on the matter of slavery. He commends a notice of the French writer George Sand in Howitt's Journal and mentions Mary Carpenter and the Bristol Ragged School.
Courtesy of Boston Public Library