The following letter from Miss Maude Divine, a granddaughter of my
mother's Aunt Susan, gives a little different account of the events of
Benjamin Osler's life, as her mother knew them. She says:
"Our great-grandfather, Benjamin Osler, was a merchant in Gibraltar and
Cadiz from about 1814. Not doing well, he decided to try trading to the
West Indies, and bought a small vessel and fitted it with merchandise.
His son, Joseph, who had been a midshipman in the Navy, went with him,
but died at Trinidad of yellow fever. On the way home, grandfather's
vessel was seized by a French privateer, and he was imprisoned, where he
remained some time, unable to communicate with his family. Finally they
received information of his whereabouts, through the Free Masons, and an
exchange of prisoners being arranged, he came home, a helpless cripple.
"Just at that time South Africa was being much talked of, and he thought
he would try his fortune there. He brought out most of his family, my
grandmother being the eldest. He never recovered his health, and died
about a year afterwards. Our great-grandmother then returned to England
with the younger children. My grandmother, having married Lieutenant
Coleman of the Navy (who came out in their vessel the _Weymouth_),
decided to remain, as did also her young brother, Stephen and a sister,
afterwards Mrs. Sayers.
"My grandmother settled at Simon's Town, and after her first husband's
death had a school, having been left with two little girls. She
afterwards married my grandfather Fineran who was in the Commissariat
Department of the Army, and mother was their only daughter. Her two
brothers died as young men. There are several descendants of the other
Osler daughters, grandmother's sisters, about Simon's Town whom we have
never seen, mother not having kept in touch with them after
grandmother's death."