Boston, Nov. 23, 1845

Dear Spooner,

     I received, yesterday, yours of the 19^th ____. Your of the 27^th ult[?], I imagined I had answered, and given you my hearty thanks for it, as containing “the opinion” of an able lawyer, who will not after a change in opinion for the heartiest of thanks. Yet, in my “Letter List,” I do not find a record of the fact. I seem to myself to have spoken to you of that clear matter, whose expressions of gratitude, that you had _____ in giving the country a book _____ to effect so much for humanity, your _____ horror but just in time to hear from your own lips. But all this appears, now, to have been only imagination. What I ought to have _____, I have merely imagined. Well, it’s very odd.

Forget you? ‘Twill be a long while ___ I shall forget you. The visit you speak of, I am quickly desirous of making; but when, I can’t now say. One reason of my so long deferring to answer the Doctor’s cheerful & cheering letter, was, that I hoped to be able, before now, to fix the time of visiting. I had not much _____ to do, before the late election, & need [?] but small remuneration  for the services I did render. ----- It is nearly three weeks since I saw Mrs. Sargeant. I must call, & see what she has to say, ___ going to Athol. Of course, I shall be glad of her company thither, though her presence there should deprive me, in some measure, of the pleasure of your society. What I lose in this way, I’ll endeavor to make up by seeing so much the more of Mrs. Hayt[?], the better half of a big whole.

Gerrit Smith, whose [?] here last (for the time of our election), spoke kindly and warmly of you. “He ought to be kept at work,” was one of his expressions. I had less time, than I could have wished, to talk with him of this subject.

     I don’t think it possible to get the Texas Committee to place a copy of your book in the hands of each member of Congress. It would be an excellent deed. It would do more for our cause than, perhaps, any of that Committee is likely to suppose. The Committee’s funds are small, inadequate to its own ______ purposes. Musserm’s zeal against Texas has wonderfully--wonderfully to those not thoroughly acquainted with the stuff composing Whiggerism—died away. S.C. Phillips, a Whig, is, however, laboring earnestly in the cause. But I did not like to hear him to talk, in his two lectures here, so much about the constitutional concessions to the slave power. Nor was I altogether satisfied with his attempted identification of that power with the anti-tariff policy; representing both to be alike hostile to the interests of free labor.

     I am afraid you have rec’d such a letter from Holton. He’s a noble fellow, & still retains considerable influence among the Garrisonian abolitionists of Penn. Somebody, I see, in the last Liberator, has a reply to Davis. In a preceding no.[?], there was also a reference to your book, & D’s articles, by a Dr. Frandin [?], or Frindin [?]. But having , some time ago, been obliged to attend somewhat on the letter [?], & finding [?]his ______ hardly worth the toll[?] it did not _____, very particularly, the Doctor’s remuneration. Where’s Phillips? His non-appearance, I am unable to explain.

     Of the book you are now at work on, I think[?] you’ll be able to give me some account, when we meet.

     M. Hildreth ____ review I hear nothing of late. It is some weeks since we met, indeed.— Of the “Constitutionalism” I hear less, & have almost scared[?] to think of it. Whither, to whom I mentioned the idea, thought favorably of it, and seemed disposed, himself, to unite in an effort to realize it. I have, however, heard nothing from him in the premises, since soon after the Eastern Convention. I believe there is little of what business men call enterprise in itself.

[Sideways] What do you think of the policy of the tomahawk-style of speaking? Were it better to be smoother-tongue, to be more or somewhat, chary[?] of people’s ____? Whither, in a recent letter to G. Smith, says, that when Michael contended with Satan, he brought no railing accusation against him.

                                  Truly Yours, S. Bradburn