Holograph, signed.

On page one of this manuscript, there is an explanation that William Lloyd Garrison was recently convicted of libel in a Baltimore city court and fined $50. Garrison encloses the "annexed card, with a request that it might be inserted in the Courier, and the sonnet which follows, with its prefatory remarks."

Beginning at the bottom of page one through page two, William Lloyd Garrison writes about his condition in the Baltimore prison. Garrison is "as humble as any occupant of a ten-foot building in our great Babel."

On page three, while in the Baltimore prison Garrison writes "a card" or letter to Mr. Francis Todd, a merchant of Newburyport, Mass. This was written for publication in the Courier. William Lloyd Garrison admonishes Francis Todd: "I am ashamed of your conduct. How could you suffer your noble ship to be freighted with the wretched victims of slavery? Is not this horrible traffic offensive to God, and revolting to humanity?"

On page four of this manuscript, there is a letter to the editor of the [Boston] Courier and "Sonnet to Sleep" by William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison explains that he pencilled the sonnet "upon the wall of my room the morning after my incarceration. It is a little bulletin showing in what manner I rested during the preceeding night."

Merrill, Walter M. Letters of William Lloyd Garrison, v.1, no.34, no.38.