NEAD, Joseph

Filed under D in CO48/42

National Archives, Kew CO48/42, 733

Liverpool August 19 1819

Dear Charles,

I know not what apology to make for again becoming so troublesome as to offer myself a candidate for your additional assistance but must rely on your known goodness for pardon and the interest which you have always taken in the welfare of my beloved Jane and myself assures me of being in forgiveness. I wish therefore to proceed to the nature of my present request.

You must know my dear friend that Jane and myself have made up our minds to become emigrants to the Cape Colony about to be established if the advantages are as good as they appear to be from the statements in the public prints, and I have no doubt from the nature of the climate & soil, emigration to the Cape of Good Hope offers advantages that no other can. I will now state what my own means are and crave your assistance for what information you may be able to give and shall be very much obliged indeed if you will read my application for the grant of one thousand [acres] for me, made at the Colonial Department. I am not aware of the form or way of doing [it] and I fear no time is to lose from those applications made. I of course am willing to make the deposit required by Government to take out nine individuals, myself making the tenth. Do you think Jane would be allowed [as one?] of the nine as she does not go out with me & most likely will not leave this country for years? If I could have the grant with her as one of the ten I would take but eight [with me] instead of nine, but in this I must be sure of [the] circumstances. The sum I shall have at disposal [for] this undertaking will be about three hundred, a hundred of which will go for the deposit, one to be left with Jane to bring her out and for things which it may be necessary she should [take?] out with her and the third hundred would be for settlements &c & to take to purchase stock on arrival and to furnish a few comforts for me for the [pass]age as I should not be able to mess with the labourers that would be taken out. My ideas of remunerating the individuals that may be willing to go with me are these, that each one has twenty acres of land put at his disposal on arrival [paper torn] serves me five years, at the expiration of which the twenty acres will be granted to him as property, also a gift of ten pounds, a cow & pig – on these terms supposing I take with me about the same number of male & female and they should marry amongst each other they would find themselves possessed in five years of forty acres and twenty pounds, two cows & two pigs, besides being cloathed and well fed for five years – these ideas are quite my own, I have not spoken to a person on the subject. I know not if [next line obscured in fold as the writer begins to write crossways across the first page of the letter] I should much wish your advice. I an extremely anxious to secure a grant of a thousand acres and a passage for the persons I may take out as I shall not like to give Mr. HADWEN notice until I am secure and I shall have but little time to spare as the transports are to sail in November. I will with many think upon what expences there may be if you think it necessary to employ any one to forward the application. As to myself I am quite ignorant as to the method to be taken to obtain the grant, but I understand there is a committee which sits at the Globe Coffee House, Fleet Street who will give what information they have collected, but I am so situated with respect to the time of giving notice that I cannot afford the time which it would take to write and receive an answer from them. May I then dear Charles venture to be so troublesome as to require a few lines per return post saying if you think I may get the grant as I should not like to throw myself out of a situation on an uncertainty and I must give Mr. HADWEN a sufficient time to get some one to take my situation. I have little doubt that you will think my prospects as a settler at the Cape will be much better than here, with a hundred a year and no prospect of increase it would be but a trifle for myself and beloved Jane to live on and I am very anxious to fix a period when I may again enjoy this society without the prospect of being again obliged to separate, and I think we could fix it as two or three years at the farthest if I go to the Cape, by which time I should I trust have things comfortable round me, the difficulties with which emigrants have to struggle would then be gone by, as well as those debts discharged, by which yourself and I MERRYWEATHER have been such sufferers

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Your very obliged friend

Jos'h NEAD