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The Dorr Letters ProjectThomas Wilson Dorr to William B. Adams: |
Introduction
William Bridges Adams was a prominent British reformer and railroad engineer who Thomas Dorr met in the late 1820s while living in Brooklyn, New York. Adams, the author of numerous political pamphlets, including The Rights of Morality (1832), was a key player in the political reform movement that sought to broaden the suffrage provisions for Britain's growing class of industrial workers. In the early 1830s, Dorr was keenly interested in political reform efforts in Great Britain and on the European continent.
Letter
Providence, Rhode Island, May 28, 1832
Mr. Wm. B. Adams
London,
Dear sir,
I had the pleasure of receiving your letter
of Jan. 18th, in March at Philadelphia, together with a copy of the Rights
of Morality, a Letter to the Examiner, & several numbers of the Tatler &
Examiner. Your health, I am glad to infer, is restored; and I trust that
no return of disease will hereafter interfere with your sincere & active
devotion to the cause of the People. The circulation of cheap papers
and tracts will answer a good purpose in preparing them to take a
larger share in the government of the country. An editor in N. York,
to whom I sent the file of Letters, in taking a brief notice of them
in his paper, has offered to receive any subscriptions that may be
presented. But there is such an abundance of Newspapers among us,
of all varieties, that I doubt whether many subscribers can be expected
on this side of the Atlantic.
We had the news, a few days ago, that the
Reform Bill had passed a second reading in the Lords, and will
soon be discussed in committee. At this distance, it seems improb-
able that it can become a law, without essential alterations, depri-
ving it of much of its vigor, unless the liberal portion of the House
of Lords shall be strongly reinforced. Earl Grey seems to have in-
curred a great hazard in going to a vote on the 2nd reading,
without a new creation of peers. Had the bill been lost, the
disastrous consequences would have been an everlasting reproach
to his memory. I say memory, because his head would probably have
been lost also, unless Englishmen are made of different stuff than what we
give them credit for. It seems most reasonable to presume that he
had positive assurance of a small majority. If your ministers were
very much in earnest, would they not make straight, quick work of
the bill? They see that the manufacturers, trade & commerce
of the country are deeply affected by the delay; and yet a slight case is
suffered to prolong it. Are not ministers, Brougham among them,
disposed to back out? Would it displease them, if some
very moderate substitute, in the form of amendments by Lord Harrowby
and others, should take the place of the original bill? There is
ground for suspicion. But after all that has been said, written,
and done out of Parliament by the People, it is improbable to
doubt that a reform equal to the necessities of the Nation, will be
had, in some way or other, and that speedily. For the sake of
peace and humanity, it is to be hoped that the wisdom of the
House of Lords will not come too late.
Your “Rights of Morality” contains many
just statements & reflections; but I agree with your critics in
thinking that you have laid yourself open to a charge of
Agrarianism, and that the class, for whom the book is intended,
will understand you as teaching such a doctrine. It was doubt-
less the intention of the beneficent Creator that all the individuals
of the vast human family should subsist by the fruits of the earth,
and there is certainly room enough for all who are sent into
this breathing world; but fraud, violence, ignorance, accident,
and perverse human policy have contradicted and postponed the
true interests of mankind for ages. It rejoices every philanthropic
heart that there is a now a strong tendency toward the natural
arrangement. The perverse system of which I speak, assigns to one
man, or to a few men, vast tracts of land, to a large body, only
such small portions as barely suffice to subsist them, and to
the majority, absolutely no share at all of the earth’s surface. A
large part of this majority, of course become virtually the slaves of the
favored few, hewers of wood and drawers of water, feeding upon
remnants, ignorant and corrupt. These vast estates are accumulated
by impolitic laws of entail and primogeniture. Vested rights of property
exist under these laws. They are bad, and should be repealed, & the
evil thus gradually corrected. The poor man, who does not now
enjoy his share of the fruits of the earth according to the benign
provision of his maker, will then, in time, receive a portion of the
divided estate of the overgrown proprietor; comfort, intelligence & enter-
prise will denote that the "greatest number" has become happy and
God meant they should be. Now I complain that the poor
man may be led to think, by your book, that he has a present
right to a portion of the great heritage, and may help himself
without waiting for the slow process of legislation. True, you tell
him to be careful lest he make his condition worse by attempt-
ing to do himself justice; but his reply will be, concede my right,
and I will take the risk of the consequences.
I thought myself warranted by the
statement of a coeditor of one of the New York papers, with whom I
had left your poem, to publish extracts, to inform you, in my last,
that it would probably be reprinted by the Harper’s, the largest
publishers in New York. I am sorry to have to now say that
my attempts to procure a reprint have been unsuccessful.
My informant spoke too decidedly of the desire of the Harper’s to
republish it. In conversation with one of them, he informed me
that the sale of poetical publications was limited. He gave us as
an instance, Bryant’s poems, which have lately been bro’t out
in England, under the patronage of Washington Irving. The
American edition goes off very heavily. Harper’s said, I can dis-
pose of a thousand copies of the poem you offer, thro’ my
standing orders; but it would cost me no more type to set up
some work in prose, of which I could sell five thousand copies.
He kept the poem a long time, and at last returned it with a request
that I would call again, if not successful elsewhere. I was
not, & took the book with me to Philadelphia.* I there tried Casey
and Lea, but found the same objections as before to poetry in general.
* I passed 2 ½ months at that place.
On calling at the Harpers' after my return, there was no more willingness
than before, to undertake. I have exerted myself without avail
to procure an American press for your poem; and it would have
given me great pleasure to have been successful: but our pub-
lishers are not disposed to reprint at their own cost. I must
ask you to excuse me for not having obtained more positive in-
formation from the Harpers, before I led you to expect a reprint.
Mayer, I am pleased to hear, is recovering his
health. Remember me to him; and believe me truly yours.
Edward, & not Alexander H. Everett, is the author of the
articles on Reform in the N.A. Review. I could not obtain the
New York Courier and Enquirer; but send you a rather coarse looking
pamphlet, which contains, I believe, all the particulars,
you wish of the pirate Gibbs.
T.W.D.
Questions
Dorr told Adams that his pamphlet opened him up to charges of "agrarianism." What did this term mean in the 19th century? From your reading of the letter, was Dorr as radical as Adams