[Elihu Burritt, ‘The Learned Blacksmith’, American abolitionist, Abraham Lincoln's consul to Birmingham, England.] Autograph Letter Signed, agreeing to give a lecture in Shrewsbury, while urging that it be delivered in a ‘neutral place’.

See Merle Curti’s 1937 edition of Burritt’s letters and journals, titled ‘The Learned Blacksmith’. He was in England from 1846 to 1853. 2pp, 12mo. On a bifolium. 33 lines of text. In fair condition, lightly worn and spotted, with minor traces of mount at one edge. Folded once for postage. The recipient is not named, and the letter is signed ‘Elihu Burritt’. He has mislaid the letter the recipient sent a few days before, inviting him to deliver a lecture, ‘in behalf of your cause, sometime in the beginning of May, I think’. He hopes that it is ‘not too late for such a lecture, for I should like much to visit old Shrewsbury at that season of the year’. He asks him to fix a day, ‘and I will hold myself engaged to give you a lecture’. He suggests one ‘entitled “The Benevolent Associations of the Day - their Spirit and Power”’, which he thinks would be ‘as useful and interesting as any I have’. He suggests that a ‘neutral place’ be chosen for the lecture and that it be divested of ‘all denominational colours’, with no intimation that it is ‘in behalf of your cause; for I am sure you will get far more from the lecture if presented in this neutral light & position’.