I now take this opportunity of writing a more lengthened letter
than my last which I wrote in haste in which I Enclosed a Draft for
the sum of twenty five pounds £25 payable to you on the Bank of
Australasia in Austin Friars London thirty days after sight, which I
hope you will get Safe. I also send by this ship’s Mail another Draft
for the same money only to Ensure the money safe in case one ship
might get lost on the passage to London and one Draft I Keep myself.
I hope as soon as you receive my letter that you will not make any
Delay but write to me Immediately and I hope and trust you will send
me a long letter for nothing will give me more pleasure than to hear
a little about you all not Omitting one of you you wrote to me for
£30 but £25 is all I can spare for the present. I have been perfectly
aware of the state of England Ever Since I left or I should have been
among you many years since but now I have banished all thoughts from
my mind of ever seeing England, the way to Say it is don’t want, for
ever since I have been here I _have not seen anybody in want_ but at
the present time wages is not quite so good as they were when I wrote
to you first that is in Consequence of the late Influx of Emigration
of late, you say you have not left a stone unturned to try to get to
me the reason is you don’t understand farming nor sheep, I am sorry
poor mother has met with the accident of which you Say poor Creature
Mother must by this time be quite Infirm, and I am happy to hear
my sister marys Child I will now say a man Thomas is quite well I
suppose he cannot recollect me 20 years since I saw him, I have often
thought of him when he first Called me uncle, If I am not mistaken
you are the only one who had written anything to me about him I was
very fond of him and my Kind love to him and I hope he has the use
of his feet. I was not aware of you being married you never stated
how long you had been so whether girls or boys what age, now this is
unkind of you was it my case I should have told you all particulars
with their age and Everything, assist poor Mother all you Can for
what kindness I have received from her now think of that. It appears
to me that you are all in a thriving way you four Children and your
Sister Eight, as I stated in my last letter here I am Tom nobody but
myself but you must Endeavour to Increase your family to the same
number. I suppose your wife will laugh at me making so bold to Say
so but she must forgive me and she must Say so in your next Letter
to me my kind love to her and your Children and I hope I shall have
that happiness of seeing you all with me before this time 12 months.
I will try to make you all as comfortable as my circumstances will
admit please the Almighty to spare me but I have my troubles in
another way to yours. I believe I told you I had separated from my
wife some years since In Consequence of her taking to Drink but she
followed me over to port phillip of late since you recd my letter. I
gave her another trial and I expended about £20 but all to no purpose
therefore I have left her about four months since she has kept me
back considerably in pocket but still I Care not, so long as the
almighty spares my health how happy I should be if you was with me,
but please God in the meanwhile I will Endeavour to purchase about an
Acre of Land on some of the Townships so that it will at all times
be your Own and a home as long as you live but at the present time
I hold a Ticket for which I gave five Guineas for landed property
to be drawn in a Lottery in the port philip District at present
belonging to the Bank of Australasia when you take your Draft for
the £25 which I remit to you ask any of the proprietors of the Bank
and no Doubt they will Explain all to you about the Drawing for they
are all prizes from 640 acres of land in a prize to ½ an acre as
also Dwelling houses. should I be fortunate to get a grand Drawing
it shall be all for the sole benefit of you and yours I do certainly
expect things will get rather worse that is as far as regards wages,
but at the present time when all things is considered now being the
middle of winter the slackest time of year but still should it be as
I anticipe, then it will be Ten times better than England as you Say
you can scarcely keep the wolf from the Door but here you can for
you Can and we do buy a sheep at a time from 4_s_ 6_d_ to 6_s_ each
oftentimes a milking cow from £1,0,0, to thirty shillings sometimes
less a Sack of flour of 200 weight of the best quallity for one
pound sugar 2_d_½ per lb 1_s_ 6_d_ per lb for Tea Everything will
seem Quite strange if you come I must Initiate you in our colonial
ways you will not be like many who arrives here strangers that know
no one. I hope should you come you will bring as many newspapers
as you can as also books should you have any for I am very fond of
reading should you Engage with the Emigration agents to come Out you
will Immediately post a letter in London to me stating the name of
the Ship you will be likely to arrive in so that on her Arrival in
port phillip I will come on board for you as also on your arrival
here you will send a letter Directly from the Ship to me by the post
as probably by that means I may get one Safe for where the Shipping
Come to anchor is nine miles from Melbourne Just off williams Town.
I sent you the first Draft for the £25 by mail that went to London
in the ship General Palmer as I am to send by two separate Ships on
the receipt of any of my letters you will write to me Immediately you
will if you possibly can to bring some recommendations they may be a
service to you att all Events they will do you no harm should it cause
you any trouble never mind. I suppose I told you in my last Letter of
my cousin Williams Death some years since the Bank here charged me
£1,0,0 to send you the £25 Mr C. or Mrs C. will no Doubt put you in
the way to come to me as I have remitted all I Can spare, had I have
recd your letter one Month Earlier I would have sent you £40 they
say farm labourers is all they want here I Say no I Consider that my
Judgment and Experience of 20 years will allow me to say something
on that head for I have seen persons and that many who arrived from
London I can safely Say never knew what a plough was meant for
untill they came to these Colonies they have made far better farm
servants in all its Branches than people from the rural Districts of
England who had been brought up to a farm from their Infancy and that
in the space of a Couple of years in fact the Londoners is Considered
the best working men in the Colonies upon an average they so soon
pick anything up and they are I may say the majority of them are the
hardest working men such as Bush carpententers splitters and fencers.
I stated in one of my letters some years Since to Mother about me
being Deaf but I am happy to say that I am now but very slightly and
that in my right hear first through a Cold but this last four Months
I have been at times been slightly troubled with spitting blood and
palpitation of the Heart but I am under a Course of Medicine and
getting bether I expect all through a cold that I Caught, Medicine
and Doctor’s Charges are very Dear here all has to be paid for. I
also Enclose to you the second Draft for the £25 in this Letter as
also a memorandum of the present rate of wages for working people as
you must expect there has been a great reduction since you received
my first letter the Consequence of so many arriving of late from
England but still if you was here it would not Interfere materially
with you while I am alive please God to see that you and yours would
be more comfortobly situated than many who Arrives entire strangers
to this province.
The writer of the next, sent out as a labouring man, and then very
poor, now holds an influential position at Sydney. The reader will
smile at his description of ‘mean and unmanly occupations:’
In Sydney times are rather dull at present—various causes have given
rise to this; the disturbed state of Europe has sensibly affected
commerce. The Gold hunting Mania of Chalaforina has put to flight
many small capitalists, who will ultimately return if permitted
by the daring freebooters of that Country. The steady stream of
immigration pouring into Sydney has brought down to a fair standard
the exorbitant wages given to female Servants. For this the Public
are mainly indebted to you. It would be well if possible to advise
all persons before leaving home, not upon any account to hang about
the purlieus of Sydney, or the other Towns of the Interior for a
dislike is generally acquired in those places for a bush life. It
is deplorable to see the Number of able bodied men who eke out a
miserable subsistence in Sydney in mean and unmanly occupations, such
as hawking through the Public Street fish, fruit, vegitables, pies
all hot—and various other things as equally disreputable, whilst they
could if they possessed a spark of Manliness or common energy of
mind obtain respectable employment in the interior, but their Weak
and fantestic minds conjure up a thousand Hobgoblins in the Shape of
Blacks, Snakes, flying foxes, Squirls, Mad Bulls, and other dreaded
Animals, as equally ridiculous. A man coming to New South Wales 16000
miles in search of a living and remaining in Sydney after he lands,
is like to an individual who digs all day long in search of some
hidden treasure, who when he discovers it declines to take it up,
because it would be too burthensome to take home.
The letter with which we shall conclude our extracts, is from a
convict—the only one before us, from any member of that class.
New South Wales.