Letter from Chauncy Hare Townshend to Mary Anne Rawson

Letter from Chauncy Hare Townshend to Mary Anne Rawson, with his 'Sonnet. On the Present crisis of affairs, as regards the Emancipation of Negroes'; some variation between manuscript and published version; Townshend also offered a variant line for line 10, which he said in his letter 'some persons might object ... as too severe upon those who are for half and half measures ... Simply considering the line, as it stands at present, as an expression of my own opinions and feelings, and also viewing it as poetry, I must say that I prefer letting it remain as it is'.