Holograph, signed.

William James presumably sent this letter to Maria Weston Chapman. He said: "I have been accustomed for years to think of you and love you as one with whom I hope to meet and commune in heaven." William James has lately corresponded with "your excellent friend, Miss Martineau," who assures him of Maria W. Chapman's willingness to help him. William James has been cooperating with friends in the preparation of an address from the Unitarian ministers of Great Britain to those of the United States, expressing sympathy with the abolitionists and urging the Unitarian clergy to be first and foremost in their protest against slavery. Some of the most enlightened men have withheld their signatures because of insufficient information. William James, therefore, wants to obtain a frequent supply of American publications in order to publish extracts from them in British periodicals. He requests that Maria W. Chapman either send him tracts and papers or inform him how he may obtain her society's publications.

See the Memoir of John Bishop Estlin, Esq., by the Rev. William James, London, 1855, p.16, for a mention of the address of the British to the American Unitarians; No. 3 in 6242.51.