Letter
ALS. Grimke writes a thoughtful and deeply spiritual letter to Jane Bettle, a prominent Philadelphia Quaker. Grimke, making reference to her difficult decision to leave South Carolina in 1820 and to pursue her Quaker beliefs in Philadelphia, begins her letter: "My beloved Friend--who ... inclined thy mind towards me when I felt very desolate having left all that was near and dear in this World behind me and about to engage in an arduous embassy." She also mentions the case of Joseph Hunton, an English Quaker accused of forgery. "Whilst the act cannot be considered otherwise than one that deserved punishment, we cannot but deeply regret our sanguinary laws that go to the greatest extremity in depriving man of life for an offence that by no means warrants it, if indeed it is right to take the life of man in any case which I doubt even for murder of the first magnitude."