COLLIS, Francis Holmes

National Archives, Kew CO48/42, 28

Penzance

20 July 1819

The Memorial of Captain Francis Holmes COLLIS of Penzance in the County of Cornwall, past Captain in His Majesty's Royal Navy and one of the heirs of the late John COLLIS Esq deceased, in his life time of the City of Quebec in the Province of Lower Canada, most respectfully represents

That having been employed for the last thirty years in His Majesty's Navy was in consequence prevented making an application for his proportion of land (say 1466 and 6/9 of an acre granted to his Father and Family for his known Loyalty and Attachment to his King and Country. Therefore your Petitioner humbly prays that in consideration of his being so employed in His Majesty's Naval Service that letters patent to grant & tract of land at the new settlement at the Cape of Good Hope (in lieu of that intended in Canada) may issue to your Petitioner as one of the Legal Representatives of the said John COLLIS deceased and to this end that your Lordship will be pleased to give directions to the Officer or Officers administering the Government at the Cape of Good Hope as you consider you may see fit.

As your Lordship may not immediately recollect the circumstances this Petition is founded on, your Petitioner begs leave to enclose an extract from a Report of a Committee of the Council in Canada.

Extract of a Report of a Committee of the whole Council dated 3^rd March 1802, approved by His Excellency the Governor in Council, 18^th March 1802, on the Petition of John COLLIS Esq

The Committee give full credit to Mr. COLLIS's representation in this Petition of his losses and sufferings at Boston previous to his arrival in this Province in the 1775 resulting from his approved Loyalty and Attachment to His Majesty's Person and Government, and of his losses in this Province since his arrival here, occasioned by the invasion of it by the Rebels and the consequent Blockade of the City for the whole of the winter 1775-6, some of the Members of the Committee have an intimate knowledge of the Facts so Honourable to Mr. COLLIS that are mentioned in the Certificates annexed to his Petition. But independent of Mr. COLLIS's well founded pretensions to every reasonable consideration on the part of Government on account of his losses and service the Committee [have] from their personal knowledge of his [obscured] have no hesitation in recommending that he obtain the prayer of his Petition, that is to say that he and his wife and their children may have 1200 acres each of His Majesty's waste land to be granted in any one of the Townships set apart for Loyalists and other deserving subjects.

Signed H.W. RYLAND

Secretary to the Province of Lower Canada

National Archives, Kew CO48/42, 338

Penzance 26^th Sept 1819

My Lord,

I have the honor to enclose you a List of men with their Familys that have engaged to go with me as settlers to the Cape of Good Hope – as there may be some on the list who may probably not come under the rules laid down by Government for emigration, your Lordship will be pleased to mark those objected to. Should the majority on the list I have the honor to enclose you meet with your approbation, I beg your Lordship will be pleased to inform me the most probable port that we shall embark from, or whether it would be convenient for the vessel to call in to this Bay for us, & at what period it is likely we shall sail from England. As I propose taking out part of my Family to the Cape I beg you will be pleased to inform me if they can be accommodated with a passage &c upon ?? footing.

I have the honour to remain my Lord your obedient humble servant

Francis Holmes COLLIS

Name and Description of Person proposing to take out the Settlers:

Francis Holmes COLLIS, Past Captain Royal Navy