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

pre 1820 Settler Correspondence before emigration

ALL the 1819 correspondence from CO48/41 through CO48/46 has been transcribed whether or not the writers emigrated to the Cape. Those written by people who did become settlers, as listed in "The Settler Handbook" by M.D. Nash (Chameleon Press 1987), are labelled 1820 Settler and the names of actual settlers in the text appear in red.

COWAN, Pattison

Written by Sue Mackay on .

National Archives, Kew CO48/42, 118

Kish

Co. Fermanagh

Ireland

30th July 1819

My Lord,

I beg leave to address you respecting the encouragement held out by Government to persons emigrating to the Cape of Good Hope and North America. I had the honour to serve His Majesty eighteen years in the 12th Reg't Lt. Drs. from which I receive Q'Master's half pay 3s per day and to hold a Lieutenant's commission five years in the Sussex Militia untill the regiment was disbanded. And begs leave to refer to Lt. Gen. ARCHDALL, Colonel of the 12th Lt. Drs., & Lt. Colonel NEWBERY of the Sussex Militia for a character during the above periods. My Lord I wrote on the 15th inst to H. GOULBURN Esq, Under Secretary, to be so good as to inform me the encouragement I might expect on imigrating to North America with wife & seven children after 23 years service but has received no answer, which causes me to think my letter must have been mislayed. However since I wrote Lt. Gen. ARCHDELL informed me that there is encouragement held out to imigrate to the Cape of Good Hope (but could not exactly state the particulars) which place I should prefer to North America if my family got a free passage out to the settlement and that I could draw my half pay. Your Lordship's compliance in acquainting me with the encouragement I might receive will particularly oblige.

My Lord, your Lordship's most obed't humble sevt

Pattison COWAN

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