My dear friend John G. Whittier, whose pleasant company and invaluable aid I had enjoyed, as much as his health would permit, during my stay in the United States, kindly accompanied me on board.  Had he been less closely identified with the transactions of which the present volume is a record, I should have felt it due to his station among the earliest and most distinguished advocates of the anti-slavery cause in America, to attempt some delineation, however imperfect, of that rare and consecrated union of consistent Christian character, fine talents, and sound and impartial judgment, which give him so much weight in the councils of his fellow-laborers.  We set sail about noon on the 1st of the Eighth month, (August,) and arrived off Liverpool about eleven o’clock, P.M. on the 13th, which interval included ten hours delay at Halifax.  We had about ninety passengers from Halifax to Liverpool, and with the exception of a severe gale on the 10th, almost amounting to a hurricane, we had a very favorable voyage.  The time from Halifax to within sight of the light house off the south coast of Ireland was announced to be only nine days and thirteen minutes.

One of my fellow passengers had recently been traveling in the southern States, and showed me a letter given to him as a curiosity at the post office at Charleston, South Carolina, which was addressed by a slave to her husband, but from insufficient direction had never reached its destination.  It was to convey the tidings that she was about to be sold to the South, and begging him, in simple and affecting terms, to come and see her, as they would never meet again.  Another of the passengers, who had also been a fellow voyager with my friend Joseph John Gurney, had recently travelled in Texas.  He was strongly impressed with the evils likely to result from the proposed recognition of that government by Great Britain.  In consequence of the promising aspect of these negotiations between General Hamilton and Lord Palmerston in favor of Texas, the paper money issued by that piratical government, and which had not been previously negotiable for more than one tenth of its nominal value, rapidly rose.  The Texas republic, in his opinion, could not secure a permanence without British recognition.

Many planters, with their slaves, have emigrated thither to escape their creditors from the border States, and the republic has been lavish of grants of land to men of capital and influence, to induce them to settle within its limits.  My informant considered the state of society to be as bad as it well could be, and continue to exist.  The white inhabitants are living not only in fear of hostile Indians, but in fear of each other.

From a late letter of a friend in America, I make the following extract relative to the present condition of Texas.