Skip to main content
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.

ROWE, Henry and Thomas

Written by Sue Mackay on .

National Archives, Kew CO48/45, 596

No.11 Warwick Square

Paternoster Row

Sept 8th 1819

Sir,

We venture to address you on a subject in which we are so vitally and immediately interested that, if unfortunately in doing so we happen to trespass on the official routine of applications of this nature, we must beg you will attribute such error to anxiety for information upon those points which we have now, respectfully, to call your attention to.

We Sir, whose names are undersigned, have jointly determined if possible to settle in the Territories of the Cape of Good Hope, and being induced from a variety of circumstances to adopt this determination, are all of us solicitous to be informed whether we shall be considered by His Majesty's Government as coming within that class of settlers to whom it is intended to grant portions of land &c pursuant to the Act of Parliament lately passed for the application of certain monies voted by address in the House of Commons.

By the wording of the Government circular relative to this subject we perceive that the bounty of free passage and victualling is extended only to those who carry over with them from the United Kingdom ten able bodied settlers “at the least”. Aware therefore of our exemption from the [preclusion] of this class of persons we beg respectfully to be informed whether we shall yet be held entitled to a grant of land (it being our purpose to settle on one and the same spot) on the following consideration, viz:

That we are able bodied and of the ages, Sir, of 21, 23 and 25 years.

That we take out with us the sum of £200 (or more) as our joint stock. It is not for [us to] press upon you Sir what we conceive to be important requisites for the undertaking we have [obscured] but which we feel ourselves to possess. However they may be considered as essentially the characters of good subjects and spirited colonists in an new and unexplored country. {It] might be deemed indecorous, as indeed [obscured] to enlarge upon the topics of respectability, [obscured], resolution, courage and patience [obscured}.

At present we should prefer a settlement in the Stellenbosch District; but this of course is a matter to be decided by your answer and by subsequent events. That answer you will permit us to hope for at your convenience.

If the considerations above cited shall be of sufficient weight with you, Sir, to excite your interference with His Majesty's Government on our behalf relative to a grant of Territory, we have only to add that we hold ourselves in readiness for the expedition at the earliest notice, and that whatever references of a personal nature may be required we have no doubt of affording you the amplest satisfaction on that head.

We have the honor to remain Sir

Your very obedient and humble servants

Henry ROWE

Thos. M. ROWE

Chas. READ

  • Hits: 5915