Charles E. Stowe, Harriet Beecher Stowe compiled from her letters and journals by her son Charles Edward Stowe

My dear Sir,--I cannot but say I am greatly obliged to you for the kind opinions expressed in your letter. On one point, however, it appears that my book has not faithfully represented to you the feelings of my heart. I mean in relation to the English nation as a nation. You will notice that the remarks on that subject occur in the dramatic part of the book, in the mouth of an intelligent Southerner. As a fair-minded person, bound to state for both sides all that could be said in the person of St. Clare, the best that could be said on that point, and what I know is in fact constantly reiterated, namely, that the laboring class of the South are in many respects, as to physical comfort, in a better condition than the poor of England.

This is the slaveholder's stereotyped apology,--a defense it cannot be, unless two wrongs make one right.

It is generally supposed among us that this estimate of the relative condition of the slaves and the poor of England is correct, and we base our ideas on reports made in Parliament and various documentary evidence; also such sketches as London labor and London poor, which have been widely circulated among us. The inference,