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

PEARSON, J re David PONTARDENT, 1826

National Archives, Kew, CO48/86, 311

Serjeants Inn

Temple

3 July 1826

Sir,

At the request of the family of a gentleman who died at the Cape of Good Hope, I take the liberty of representing to you the necessity they are under of soliciting the aid & protection of Government in the situation in which they stand with respect to property of which, from various sources of information, they are led to supposed he died possessed; & to which they have become entitled by his decease.

Their father, Mr. David PONTARDENT, went to the Cape about the year 1806 & continued to reside there till his death in May 1825; &, it has been understood, he was officially connected with the Court of Admin[istration] there. Mr. PONTARDENT left his wife and family in England under the protection of her friends (who are highly respectable) communicating with them not very frequently & never upon pecuniary concerns. They are therefore almost entirely uninformed [respecting] them except from vague & unconnected sources, being led to suppose that he left property of an amount not inconsiderable: but in whose hands [or] of what nature, or in what situation, there is no information whatever transmitted by an one connected with his affairs.

Under these circumstances they are advised to entreat the intervention & protection of Government, humbly requesting that inquiry may be directed to ascertain whether he has left a will or how his affairs have been administered.

Mrs. PONTARDENT died before her husband. I address you merely as a friend of their family, not professionally. If from this there should appear to be any deficiency, either in the statement of the case, or want of regular authority, if I may request the favor of intimation of it, I will endeavour to supply whatever may be further needful.

I have the honor to be Sir

Your most obed't hbl serv't

J. PEARSON

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