The Latimer case has greatly increased the abolition feeling in this State, besides showing that the recent decision of the Supreme Court will in fact operate in favor of the runaway slave. It is not probable that another slave will ever be again captured in Massachusetts. There is a petition to Congress in circulation, designed simply to express the feelings of Massachusetts, which will probably be signed by almost every person in the State.
TO JOHN TORREY.
Cambridge, January 3, 1843.
Your letter, truly welcome after so long an interval, reached me yesterday. I should have been very glad to be with you during the holidays, but cannot think of leaving before I finish these interminable Compositæ. I hoped to have accomplished this on Saturday last; all but taking up some dropped stitches; but was a good deal interrupted last week. The December number of “Annals and Magazine of Natural History” (of which Professor Balfour is the botanical editor) contains a very complimentary notice of the “Botanical Text-Book,” accompanied with a few judicious selections, which shows that the writer has looked it over carefully; and winds up by terming it the best elementary treatise (as to structural botany) in the English language. So easy is it to get praise where it is not particularly deserved!...
My great object for next year is to attempt to raise $10,000 from some of our rich men, to rebuild our greenhouse on a larger and handsome scale. There are a few men, who have never given anything to the college, who may perhaps be induced to give for this object.
TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.
Cambridge, Mass., February 13, 1843.
I note with interest what you propose in regard to Lindheimer’s collections for sale in Centuriæ, fall into your plans, and will advertise in “Silliman’s Journal” (and in “London Journal of Botany”) when all is arranged. Pray let him get roots and seeds for me. I will do all I can for him. But if the Oregon bill passes, a party under Lieutenant Frémont, or some one else, will go through the Rocky Mountains to Oregon; and parties of emigrants or explorers will go also. Now why not send Lindheimer in some of these? Probably the government party would afford him protection, and probably he might be formally attached to the party. Frémont will not take Geyer;[131] but I believe he wants some one. The interesting region (the most so in the world) is the high Rocky Mountains about the sources of the Platte, and thence south. I will warrant ten dollars per hundred for every decent specimen. If he collects in Texas, eight dollars per hundred is enough. I write in haste, hoping this plan may strike you favorably and be found practicable. Let me know at once. The opportunity should not be lost. Do send Lindheimer to the Rocky Mountains if possible.
TO W. J. HOOKER.
Cambridge, February 28, 1843.