From Heinrich Debus   Decbr 16th. 1862

This has just come as I was about to post my letter.¹

Dec[em]b[e]r 16^th. 1862

My dear John,

Many thanks for Hectors² letter,³ which I have been reading with the greatest interest. I admire his great courage, perseverance under great sufferings and privations, as well as his great intentions, yet after all one cannot help wishing he had got out of this unfortunate war business. I have often thought about the causes of the displeasure harboured by Americans against England. Whatever these causes may be, certainly the two Hector mentions in his letter, cannot be the true one’s. I have been all the time in England, whilst this unfortunate war has been going on, and I never heard any body express, or saw printed in any respectable newspaper, anything which could be taken as satisfaction at the reverses of the North. And as for powder, guns and ships, well, the North must expect this. All commercial communities contain plenty of members who will sell anything to anybody, even to the devil himself, if he can pay. Nay, the Americans themselves sold to the Russians during the Crimean War,⁴ anything the Russians could find money for.

I wish your cousin lived in England. He is a fine specimen of a man and would do honor anywhere. One point is your cousins letter I cannot press quite without notice. His argument is: slavery is an inhumane institution, hence the N.S. in putting down, or attempting to put down slavery, by making war on the South, are doing a piece of holy work.—If it did not involve more writing then I can do this morning, it could easily be shown on religious as well as political grounds, that the best policy of the United States would be—to let the South quietly go.

Ever yours | H Debus

Read with care the Examination paper I send you.

RI MS JT/1/D/30