Bridport Dorsetshire

October 9^th 1866

My dear Mr. Douglass,

On our return from our three-months' tour through France Italy & Switzerland, we spent a few days at Woodcote, (Bristol) before reaching Bridport at the beginning of July—and there we found your kind & welcome letter awaiting us.—It is always a great pleasure
to receive one of your nice long letters, & this one (dated May 31st) was as usual full of interest.

I trust you will have no more such adventures as the one you describe as having taken place in Baltimore last winter, it was a mercy that you escaped uninjured—but you might not be so fortunate another time, so do be prudent as to where & how you travel, and remember how very valuable

your life is to a whole race as well as to your own family & your many friends. We
are delighted to hear that your health continues good, & that your influence on the public
mind is on the increase. It is a great thing to possess such gifts as yours, & a still greater to devote them incessantly & unreservedly—as you do—to God's work of raising & comforting the most afflicted of his children.

Your life of travelling & public speaking must be a very wearing & exhausting one, it is wonderful that you can go on as you do with unimpaired health—don't however presume upon this, & go on too long without relaxation.—I should think you have well earned the right to rest awhile,—and

that a few months in England or Europe would really be a good investment—You would return so much refreshed after a complete change.—I dare say the "convenient season" will never present itself, when you will be able to say "now I am not wanted for six months here, so will take the opportunity of visiting my English friends."—You will find work to do as long as you live, and perhaps work that no one else can do as well so it's no use waiting in the hope of slipping off without being missed.—I do hope you will resolve to cross the Atlantic once more, & that before long.

As I say to Mr Carpenter, "We had better travel as much as we can before we get too

old to enjoy it." I am sure you will be glad to hear that our journey last Spring was of great service to my husband.

We spent about three weeks in Rome, a short time for all the places & objects of interest with which it is crowded, but long enough for us to see the chief matters of interest, & have a glimpse of the world-famous pictures & works of art. We are not enough of artists either of us to make us feel the extreme interest in all the galleries of pictures that many do. I like seeing a few of the very choicest, but vast collections weary me, & I remember but little after leaving them. The ruins of old Rome I think interested me more than any thing else we saw. We were rather

too late in the Spring for Rome which we did not reach till the 2^nd week in April. & it was May when we got to Naples, so that the heat some what lessened our enjoyment of these places. From Naples we visited the very curious & interesting remains of the the buried city of Pompeii,—also Sorrento on the bay of Naples, & the beautiful island of Capri.

After a week in & near Naples we were glad to turn Northward, & stopped ten days at Florence—thence to Bologna & Milan. The Cathedral of Milan is the most beautiful church to my taste that we saw in Italy.—I much preferred it to S^t Peters at Rome. It is built of white marble, in the Gothic style, w^ch I think is the style for church architecture, elaborately ornamented

with statuary—As the guide book says there is a "marble populations" of 3000 in and
about the building—it is not yet completed, I believe about 1000 more statues are intended to decorate it. From the roof of Milan Cathedral we had a magnificent view of the surrounding country with the Apennines on one side & the snow covered Alps in the North. Unfortunately the church was decorated in preparations for the Corpus Christi festival—& a good deal of fine hand carving was covered by draperies, which were also festooned across the grand arches from column to column—the crimson & gold cloth looked a very paltry intrusion on the grand simplicity of the marble columns.

From Milan we went to the Lakes of Como Lugano and Maggiore, spending a week amongst them very pleasantly. They are very charming—& would be for a much longer sojourn, but here again we were rather overpowered by the heat. We crossed into Switzerland by the St. Gotthard Pass, which is one of the very finest for the grand scenery it takes you through. This Pass is not open to travellers till June—by that time a road is cut through the snow for carriages to pass—we drove for about an hour thro' walls of snow varying from ten to twenty five feet in height it was a most exciting and delightful day.—We visited Lucerne, Interlachen, Berne, Lausanne & Geneva,—and

recrossed France, & the channel & found ourselves again safely in England after an absence of exactly 100 days.

Tho' much benefitted by the change M^r Carpenter is far from strong, & does not feel able to resume his full duty but for the present finds it best to get someone to help him by taking one of the Sunday services—We must be thankful if he is able to take even one service without suffering from it. He is engaged with some extra writing this week so will content himself with a message of kind remembrances to you—he sent you an Inquirer a few days ago containing a review his on Whitelaw Reid's "After the War," which I suppose you received.

We were glad to learn from the Papers that you had been received

with honor at the Republican Conference at Philadelphia.

I have not heard from M^rs Crofts now for many months—I ought to have written to her as she may not know that we are at home. I suppose they are still at Hanley, & hope to write to her in a few days. I suppose I told you that M^r Philip Carpenter had gone over to Canada, & was settled at Montreal, he has just started a boys' school which I hope will be successful; he has had a great deal of experience, & is, I should think a Capital teacher.—We think his terms are very low, $60 a year, but he says they are considered high there. He began with the full number that he wishes to take namely twenty.

His wife—a German lady—teaches some of the younger ones, & gives lessons in German to the older boys. Miss CarpenterCarpenter, Mary

Mary Carpenter (1807-77) was the daughter of British reformer and Unitarian minister Lant Carpenter, and with her brother Philip Lant Carpenter, was a social justice activist. She began operating a girls' school in Bristol in 1829 with the help of her mother, Anna Penn Carpenter. Finding the care of poor children her life's calling, in 1835 Mary formed the Working and Visiting Society and in 1852 opened her own reformatory for boys. In the 1850s and 1860s she lobbied for industrial schooling in Britain and opened two schools of her own. In her later years she traveled widely and lectured in Britain and India on education and penal reform. She was inspired to visit India as a result of her father’s friendship with Rammohun Roy, a Bengalese teacher and religious educator who established the Brahmo Samaj, a brotherhood made up of Christians, Muslims, and Hindus. Roy visited Mary’s father, Lant Carpenter, at the Lewis Mead Unitarian Church in Bristol, but died shortly afterward from meningitis in 1833. Mary visited India four times, where she established a school for Hindu girls and became active in social reform. Jo Manton, Mary Carpenter and the Children of the Streets (London, 1976), 18-30; Jennifer S. Uglow, ed., The International Dictionary of Womens Biography (New York, 1982), 94; Mary Carpenter, Six Months in India (London, 1868).ACAB, 1:531-32; DNB, 3:1068-70, 1071-72; DAB, 1:561. of Bristol is now on her way to India—she has long

felt a deep interest in the condition of the women of India, & a wish to help those who are trying to improve it by giving them education. Miss C. also felt the need of a complete change for a time from her own work at home, & believes that the voyage & new scenes & life will be of services to herself. While she hopes at the same time to be useful to the neglected Indian Hindoo women by spending a few months amongst them. She has doubtless reached Bombay before now. We heard from her from Aden, after passing thru' the Red Sea, she wrote in good spirits, had borne the heat well, & seemed quite enjoying the voyage,—she is one of a pleasant party of ladies & gentlemen. English
& Hindoo.

My MotherBrowne, Mary Osler

Mary Osler Browne (c. 1785-1877) was the wife of the businessman William Browne (c. 1791-1859) and the sister of Thomas Osler (1783-1861), founder of F. & C. Osler, who was one of the most prominent crystal manufacturers in nineteenth-century Britain, specializing in chandeliers and fountains. 1841 England Census, Gloucestershire, Bristol, 22; England and Wales, Christening Records, 1530-1906 (online); England and Wales, Death Index, 1837-1915 (online); Sandra Davison, Conservation and Restoration of Glass (1989; Burlington, Mass., 2003), 71. has just been spending a few weeks with us—she is in her 82^nd year, but wonderfully well. Tho' delicate & requiring great care

She is full of life & energy. She was much interested in hearing your last letter which I read to her. Our nephews and nieces are growing up to Man's & Woman's estate around us, & making us feel very old! One of M^r Carpenter's nephews Estlin Carpenter has been preparing for the Ministry, and will next month enter upon his duties as sole Minister of an important congregation at Clifton. He is a very accomplished and & clever young man, with great earnestness & beauty of character, so that we feel very hopeful for his future. Estlin's older brother has been for years settled in Bristol in a prosperous business, the two brothers will live together.

I am afraid I shall have tired you with this long rambling letter, so will wish you good bye, hoping that you may soon find a

leisure half hour with nothing better to do than sit down & tell us of yourself. How the summer has passed with you, & what are your winter plans.

With affectionate remembrances always sincerely your friend

Mary CarpenterCarpenter, Mary Browne

Mary Browne Carpenter (c. 1824–98) was the wife of the prominent Unitarian minister Russell Lant Carpenter (1819–92). They were married in Bridgwater, Somersetshire, in 1853. She was one of four daughters born to William Browne, a wealthy Unitarian merchant, and his wife, Mary. William Browne served as mayor of Bridgwater in 1854. In addition to her support of the antislavery effort, Mary Browne Carpenter was also deeply involved in the woman suffrage movement, belonging to one of the more radical suffrage societies in Bridport. She also supported the animal rights and temperance movements. 1841 England Census, Gloucestershire, Bristol, 22; “England and Wales, Christening Records, 1530–1906,” FamilySearch.org; “England and Wales, Death Index, 1837–1915,” FamilySearch.org; “England and Wales, Marriage Index, 1837–1915,” FamilySearch. org; “England and Wales, Non-Conformist Records Indexes, 1588–1977,” FamilySearch.org; Elizabeth Crawford, The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: A Regional Survey (New York, 2006), 161, 169.She has not been identified by name.

Does your daughter Rosetta (I forget her married name) still live with you? I hope that she & your little granddaughter are quite well.