1828 WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. First-rate Autograph Letter to Fellow Abolitionist, Adam Hodgson.

A first-rate William Wilberforce artifact with associated ephemera. Rare autograph from this period in Wilberforce's life, when his health was failing and his eyes all but blind. Preserved superbly with an associated letter, testifying to his fame and influence during his own lifetime. Many items from this period only secretarially signed. This signed by Wilberforce himself. 

Written near the end of the anti-slavery work as the weight of Wilberforce's years of labor began exacting their due on the abolitionist's health, here in his increasingly poor vision. The present is a nicely preserved 1827 two-page autograph letter to fellow abolitionist, Adam Hodgson [1788-1862].

Hodgson was heir to an influential shipping company in Liverpool, the hub of England's slave trade. His own father, Thomas Hodgson, had made a fortune in the transport and sale of human flesh in both Gambia and Sierra Leone. Adam's "conversion" of perspective is not historically locatable at present. It seems, however, to have been connected to his Evangelical conversion in the early 1800's. By 1810, we find Adam and his Brother, Isaac, forming a branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society in Liverpool and active in the Church Missionary Society. 

Almost certainly his family's history fueled his personal investment in the abolitionist cause. Isaac was secretary of the Liverpool Anti-Slavery Society and both Adam and Isaac authored multiple pamphlets in aid of the abolitionist cause, were friends with the Quaker abolitionists, James Cropper and Thomas Clarkson, and of course our Mr. Wilberforce. 

In the present letter, Wilberforce expresses his wish to aid Hodgson, but is concerned that his failing health will prevent him. The precise nature of the "aid" is left undisclosed. Though we suspect it is either a comment on an abolitionist article or promotion of one of Hodgson's anti-slavery pamphlets, as Wilberforce continues, "the complaint in my eyes, which almost entirely prevents my reading, keeps me ignorant of all periodical literature, especially of all ephemeral publications." He ends, taking up the pen himself, "I take ye pen into my own hand to assure you once more that we shall be happy to see you [en famille] at Highwood Hill." Highwood Hill was the estate Wilberforce purchased after his health required he resign from Parliament. 

Two pages on a bifolium with the first section of the letter in the hand of Wilberforce's amanuensis, then the final 8 lines in Wilberforce's own hand, as well as the autograph. Includes Wilberforce's characteristic, personal red wax seal. 

[With]

An associated autograph letter in the hand of Adam Hodgson to Sarah Lawrence, [1780-1859], female educator and a sometime combatant on the abolitionist issue who ran the prestigious School for Girls at Gateacre near Liverpool. She appears later to have been moved to the abolitionist side. 

Also includes an unpublished description of Wilberforce's character by one who knew and worked with him personally.

4pp on bifolium, dated to May 30, 1838, and regarding his sending her the associated Wilberforce letter included here. "Perhaps too you will do me the favor to regard it, as the Pipe of Peace, presented by a decided Abolitionist to kind & liberal friends – on this question arrayed in some degree, & for a little period on opposite sides . . . I am sure you will have been deeply gratified by the life of this excellent man – a life of such deep, & varied, & absorbing interest. It affords an exemplification (unequalled I do believe in the annals of departed excellence) of a Christian walking unhurt in the furnace of worldly absorptions & seductions."