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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.

HOWELL, Samuel

Written by Sue Mackay on .

National Archives, Kew CO48/43, 688

47 Bread Street

Ratcliffe

Aug 9 1819

My Lord,

Urged by the claims of a numerous family under the pressure of adverse circumstances I have associated with other applicants for permission and assistance to emigrate to the intended settlement in Southern Africa. Permit me to state the peculiar circumstances which have induced the resolution humbly to solicit your Lordships sanction and acceptance and that such facilities & advantages may be accorded as circumstances may demand and admit.

I conducted a School at Waltham Abbey many years with tolerable success, till the reduction of the Ordnance Department there, which materially affected the welfare of the town & this evil extended to me and I was compelled to abandon the [little?] establishment which by great assiduity & the loss of my little capital I had raised.

I have since had precarious and [seasonal?] employment in London in the office of a public accountant (Mr. J. CARTER, 8 Baring Lane) but wholly inadequate to the urgent necessities of the numerous dependant claimants upon my willing exertions. I had previously to my scholastic attempts several years commercial intercourse and thus theory and practice particularly meet in my experience, should such qualifications promise utility to the projected colony and advantages to myself suffer me humbly to beg a grant of such assistance and advantages as come within the intended purposes of Government. The pecuniary guarantees set forth in the circular will be deposited and a small capital advanced by my friends to forward my further establishment there.

I am 33 years of age, have a wife & five children.

The hand of misfortune was upon me in early life and its promises disappointed through the unforeseen misfortunes of a parent who suddenly sank from affluence to comparative poverty and entailed on his family the evils he could not prevent &from which they have never recovered.

I am, my Lord, with devoted submission

Your humble & obed't svt

Sam'l HOWELL

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