Inhabitants of Plaistow
From the inhabitants of Plaistow, Essex, England, in public meeting assembled, to the people of the United States of America.
Permit us, as a small portion of the English nation, to add our sentiments of sympathy and sorrow to those felt by you on the recent lamentable events which have plunged your whole community into intense grief.
The base assassination of President Lincoln, with the attempted murder of a chief member of your government, is one of those events which merge in common unity those minor political differences which are essential to the freedom of great nations, but without necessity inferring antagonism. Permit us, therefore, as one with you, to offer our profound sympathy and sorrow, to unite in detestation of a crime disgraceful to humanity, and to assure you that the blow struck at yourselves recoils on us.
But, further, we heartily sympathize with that national action which, as expounded by your lamented President, had for its result the emancipation of slaves, and in the destruction of rebellion the destruction also of that system which we believe to have been its moving cause, even if not the prompting cause, also, of President Lincoln’s assassination and the murderous attack on Mr. Seward. That as a united and universally free nation your present position may be unendangered by recent events and your future course attended by increasing stability and glory is our earnest desire, thus expressed through the medium of your official representative at St. James.
Signed, on behalf of the meeting—