Letter from Anne Warren Weston to Fanny Kemble

by Anne Warren Weston

Rough copy of a letter to F. Kemble; A.W. Weston

Mrs Frances Anne Kemble

Dear Madam

I trust that an apology for addressing you may be found in the belief I am most happy to entertain that on the question now so deeply agitating the whole country, that of the continuance of American Slavery your sympathies are in agreement with those of the Abolitionists.

I would have wished that the request I am about to make might have now the advantage of presentation by some one engaging the honour of a personal acquaintance & respect more than even the advice upon the courtesy of my dear friend Mrs Fuller upon who who could have asked your help without any of that fear of intrusion which a stranger must necessarily feel.

You may be perhaps amused that an Annual Bazaar for the benefit of the Anti Slavery Course has been held in Boston for the last 15 years. The state of sentiment considered it has been very succeſsful, & has furnished a large proportion of the funds by which Anti Slavery publications & Literature have been maintained sustained. For the last few years it has been held in Faneuil Hall and several of the evenings (for the Bazaar continues open ten days) have been devoted to addreſses on Slavery from men distinguished in the cause such as Wendell Phillips, Garrison, W. H. Channing & others.

My wish is that The Bazaar for 1849–50 opens in Faneuil Hall on Monday the 24^th of Dec & continues open through the next ten days. My wish My purpose in writing is to ask that you would give any evening during that period you would give on your the A.S. Cause the Bazaar the invaluable benefit of your assistance by such Readings as you may judge best suited to the occasion.

My knowledge that you were to be in New York on the 17^th makes me hope that you might visit Boston without much additional inconvenience.

I send some an account of our last year's Bazaar that you may obtain a better view of the mode of action, in behalf of which I have ventured to addreſs you solicit your help. Mrs Green, Miſs Cabot, Mrs James Russell Lowe, Mrs F. G. Shaw, Misses Chapman are names that occur to me among our list of Managers as those with which you may be familiar.

I will occupy your time no longer. I should feel embarr more sensibly the intrusion has meant of making this application were I not so deeply sensible of the solemnity & magnitude of the work those our very humble efforts are striving to promote.

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Believe me with sentiments of very high admiration and respect  

yrs most.