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.

CARR, Richard

Written by Sue Mackay on .

National Archives, Kew CO48/42, 347

No.3 Walkers Court

St.James

27th September 1819

My Lord,

I most humbly beg permission to inform your Lordship that on the 8th of this month I ventured to address a petition to His Royal Highness the Duke of York stating that I had served His Majesty ten years, principally as Sergeant in the 69th Foot, that I fought in that station with my three sons (all non commissioned officers) at the Battle of Waterloo, where I received a wound in my head – that shortly after the conclusion of the peace my three sons were sent to the Regiment in India, and that I was discharged without any provision or means of support and with a wife and thee more children dependent upon me for bread – that since that period had struggled thro' all the horrors of extreme poverty to maintain my wretched family on the precarious earnings of a daily labourer – that now this miserable resource had failed and that I had nothing to save me from utter ruin unless His Royal Highness on a consideration of my unhappy circumstances and out of his great goodness would send me and my family to the Cape of Good Hope without the usual deposit, which I had no means of paying. I take the liberty to enclose to your Lordship His Royal Highness's answer to this petition, and as he has informed me that your Lordship alone can preserve me from destruction I must humbly and earnestly implore your Lordship to take my case into your gracious consideration and in sending me to the Cape enable me with the assistance of my sons to support my family by honest industry, which is what I want. I have two sons with me, one 18 the other 15 and a daughter of [14?] years and I have another son in Ireland, now 19 years of years [sic], almost perishing with want, who would accompany us if your Lordship would graciously be pleased to make him the object of your Bounty.

I see no chance my Lord for the [obscured] of my family being actually starved [but] by emigration as I have tried without success every [means in] this country to obtain employment for me and my children. I therefore trust your Lordship's known humanity to save our perishing but loyal family from destruction.

I am my Lord with the most humble [respect]

Your Lordship's devoted servant

Richard CARR

Late Sergeant 69th Rgt.

[enclosure]

Horse Guards

21st Sept 1819

Major General Sir H. TORRENS is directed by the Commander in Chief to acquaint Richard CARR that it is not in His Royal Highness's power to render him any assistance in the object of his petition of the 8th inst, as it rests entirely with the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Earl BATHURST, to decide whether the circumstances of his case are such as to permit his being sent to the Cape of Good Hope, and he should therefore apply to his Lordship on the subject.

Richard CARR

Late Serj. 69th Regt.

  • Hits: 6580