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GSSA
The 1820 Settler Correspondence
 as preserved in the National Archives, Kew
 and edited by Sue Mackay

Correspondence 1821 to 1837.

Here only letters by known settlers or their families, or letters of great relevance to the 1820 settlers, have been transcribed, whereas ALL the 1819 correspondence was transcribed (see CO48/41 through CO48/46) whether or not the writers emigrated to the Cape.

Unless otherwise stated letters were written to either the Secretary of State for the Colonies or his deputy.The original correspondence is filed in order of receipt. Here it has been placed in alphabetical order according to the surname of the writer, with letters by the same writer in chronological order, for ease of reading. Original spelling has been maintained. Reference numbers, where given, refer to printed page numbers stamped on the letters and will enable visitors to the National Archives to locate the letter more easily.

BRAITHWAIT, John, 1820

Written by Sue Mackay on .

Filed with the Dispatches of Sir Rufane DONKIN

National Archives, Kew, CO48/49, 121
Copy

Harewood
12 July 1820

To His Excellency Major General Sir Rufane Shaw DONKIN KCB, Acting Governor of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, &c &c

The Petition of John BRAITHWAIT

Most humbly sheweth

That Petitioner came to this Colony as a settler, that under peculiar circumstances was obliged to leave his wife & family behind, she being then quite far gone in a state of pregnancy and enjoying at the same time a very ill state of health, and no doctor being on board the vessel in which Petitioner was ordered to embark, together with her timidity rendered such a separation absolutely necessary, or Petitioner must ultimately have lost the chance then offered by Government to emigrate to this Colony. Under these cases Petitioner humbly hopes that Your Excellency will be pleased to intercede with the Colonial Secretary in England in order that a passage may be granted free of expence for Petitioner’s wife and family to this Colony. On a grant of Petitioner’s request his wife & family will proceed to Portsmouth or any other port directed by a letter directed to her at Knaresbro, Yorkshire. And Petitioner as in duty bound will ever pray.

(Signed)
John BRAITHWAIT

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