THE LIBRARY 
 
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 LOS ANGELES
 
 SONGS FROM "THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER." 
 
 THE BUSHMAN'S SONG. "I'm travelling down the Castlereagh 
 and I'm a station hand." Words by A. B. Paterson ; Music by E. J*. 
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 LAST WEEK. " Oh ! the new chum went to the back block run, but 
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 \/ 
 EMIGEANT'S HOMl:. 
 
 LETTEES 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY PARKES 
 
 WITH PREPACK and NOTES BY ANNIE T. PARKES 
 
 ANGUS & ROBERTSON 
 
 ^oohsellcrs to llje Unlbfrsilg 
 1896
 
 V
 
 \'V- 
 
 PzB3 
 
 TO 
 
 THE MfiMDRY 
 
 OF 
 
 MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER 
 
 I DEDICATE THIS BOOK 
 
 X AiK o»^/ A^- 3 G
 
 PREFACE 
 
 In launching this little book upon the stormy 
 waves of the sea of criticism I am not troubled 
 by many fears. I believe that the name of 
 Henry Parkes will yet be dear to the heart of 
 every patriotic son of Federated Australia, and 
 that all concerning him will be very precious in 
 their eyes. The mistakes, the errors, and the 
 failures of the last years of his life will be wiped 
 away as one would brush dust from a beloved 
 dead face. Who that is just will judge of him 
 by the years between seventy and eighty ? No ! 
 By the glorious aims, by the high hopes, by the 
 great achievements, and the ringing eloquence 
 of his grand manhood will he be judged; and 
 when Australasia takes her place among the 
 great nations of the world, his name will be 
 inscribed in golden letters upon the annals of 
 her history. And the very least of her sons 
 
 7
 
 8 PREFACE 
 
 may learn a lesson from his wondrous life, a 
 lesson of high-souled courage, patient endur- 
 ance, and marvellous perseverance. I send forth 
 these pages to tell their simple story of how, in 
 spite of bitter poverty, much hardship, and utter 
 want of education, Henry Parkes fought his way 
 to everlasting fame. 
 
 ANNIE T. PARKES. 
 
 Leichhardt, 11th July, 1896.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 On the 11 til of July, 1836, Henry Parkes and 
 Clarinda Varney were married at tlie Cliurcli of 
 England church at Edgbaston, a suburb of Bir- 
 mingham, the only witness present being either 
 the clerk or the verger. Clarinda Varney was the 
 only daughter of Robert Varney, a man well to 
 do in his little world. My mother used to say 
 she had the blood of Varney, the villain of 
 Kenihmrth, in her veins ; and we children 
 would assure her that was nothing to be 
 proud of. She left her home in consequence 
 of cruel persecution from her step-mother, and 
 her father never spoke to her again. Often 
 have I sat on my little stool close to her side 
 and listened to the never-tiring story of her 
 sufferings and trials, brightened only by the 
 devoted love between her and my father. I 
 believe she was engaged to him for two years
 
 10 INTRODUCTION 
 
 before she left lier home, and she married him 
 some months afterwards, she being twenty-three 
 and he twenty-one. They married without any 
 provision for their wedded life, except the 
 work they could obtain from day to day, and 
 went back from Edgbaston to live in the little 
 room in Birmingham where she had lodged 
 while alone. My father's relatives were very 
 good to her, and she used often to tell me about 
 the daily visits she and her little brown dog paid 
 to the old father of the husband she so fondly 
 loved. They had a bitter struggle for existence, 
 and lost two children. Then they decided to go 
 to London, with an idea of emigrating to Aus- 
 tralia, — which, to their untutored minds, must 
 indeed have appeared a veritable land of convicts 
 and blackfelloAvs, but still the 'land of promise' 
 where the}' might prosper as they could not do 
 at home. 
 
 My father had three sisters — Sarah, Maria, 
 and Eliza, These letters are chiefly addressed 
 to the eldest, Sarah, to whom he was greatly 
 attached, and of whom he thus writes to my 
 mother in 1861 : — 
 
 ' All is now over. Poor Sarah died this 
 ' morning at two o'clock, Next to you and our 
 ' dear children I have now lost the dearest
 
 INTRODUGTION 11 
 
 * creature that remained to ine upon earth. She 
 'was a mother tome in my childhood, and all 
 ' through life she was doubly dear for her 
 ' meekly-borne sufferings. She, whose earthly 
 ' lot was one of uninterrupted trial and labour, 
 ' has now gone to eternal rest. God be praised 
 ' for his mercy in bringing me here by such an 
 ' accident to lighten the burden of her last 
 ' moments.' My father was then in England 
 on a lecturing tour with the late William Bede 
 Dalley. 
 
 The letters were given to me at Faulconbridge 
 early in the eighties by my Aunt Maria, and it 
 was her wish, and my father's also, that I should 
 publish them after his death. He was the 
 youngest of his family, and the last to die. And 
 now I will leave the letters to speak for them- 
 selves.
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface 
 
 7 
 
 Introduction 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 Letter One ... 
 
 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 Letter Two... 
 
 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 Letter Three 
 
 
 
 
 
 27 
 
 Letter Four 
 
 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 Letter Five 
 
 
 
 
 
 34 
 
 Letter Six ... 
 
 
 
 
 
 37 
 
 Letter Seven 
 
 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 Letter Eight 
 
 
 
 
 
 42 
 
 Letter Nine 
 
 
 
 
 
 50 
 
 Letter Ten... 
 
 
 
 
 
 51 
 
 Letter Eleven 
 
 
 
 
 
 54 
 
 Letter Twelve 
 
 
 
 
 
 56 
 
 Letter Thirteen 
 
 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 Letter Fourteen 
 
 
 
 
 
 62 
 
 Letter Fifteen 
 
 
 
 
 
 66 
 
 Letter Sixteen 
 
 
 
 
 
 69 
 
 Letter Seventeen 
 
 
 
 
 
 71 
 
 Letter Eighteen 
 
 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 13
 
 14 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Letter Nineteen 
 
 
 78 
 
 Letter Twenty 
 
 
 
 79 
 
 Letter Twenty-One 
 
 
 
 8» 
 
 Letter Twenty-Two 
 
 
 
 86 
 
 Letter Twenty-Three .... 
 
 
 
 93 
 
 Letter Twenty-Four 
 
 
 
 96 
 
 Letter Twenty-Five 
 
 
 
 ... 103 
 
 Letter Twenty-Six 
 
 
 
 ... Ill 
 
 Letter Twenty-Seven ... 
 
 
 
 ... 115 
 
 Letter Twenty-Eight ... 
 
 
 
 ... 117 
 
 Letter Twenty-Nine 
 
 
 
 ... 126 
 
 Letter Thirty 
 
 
 
 ... 128 
 
 Letter Thirty-One 
 
 
 
 ... 133 
 
 Letter Thirty-Two 
 
 
 
 ... 136 
 
 Letter Thirty-Three ... 
 
 
 
 ... 140 
 
 Appendix — 
 
 
 
 Letter from Mr. J. G. Horn 
 
 :)lower 
 
 ... 145 
 
 The Emigi-ant's Farewell to 
 
 lis Country . . . 
 
 ... 15a 
 
 My Native Land 
 
 
 
 ... 152
 
 LETTERS
 
 LETTER ONE. 
 
 London, 
 Sunday, 25th Noveviber, 1838. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 By tlie time you receive this letter I hope 
 my father will have g-ot the better of the severe 
 illness which he suffered under when I left 
 Birmingham, and together with my poor dear 
 mother, and you all, be better in health and 
 spirits than I can hope for. As I did not get 
 lodgings till late yesterday, I hope you will 
 excuse my not writing before to-day. I shall 
 now endeavour to tell you all that has passed 
 since we parted. 
 
 The train which we came up by left Birming- 
 ham about one o'clock, and for the first fifty 
 miles of the journey the rain and wind beat 
 through the nothing but naked windows of our
 
 18 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 second-class carriage with such bitterness that I 
 began to think we should surely be the subject 
 of a tale in the ' Penny Storyteller/ entitled 
 'The Weather Slain.' We saw very little of 
 any interest on the way, except the tunnels, one 
 of which is nearly two miles long. Had it been 
 a hundred, we should not have been so murdered 
 by the weather, but as it was, we were through 
 it in five minutes. We saw nothing of Coventry 
 but about a hundred poor men's houses, two 
 church steeples, and two or three high chimneys, 
 the line of road being cut through the rising 
 ground on the right of the city several yards 
 deep. The day cleared up as it died away, and 
 the ghost of a devil that dragged us along tore 
 out from Primrose Hill with the bright crescent 
 moon above us in a calm and beautiful sky. In 
 half an hour afterwards we were in London. 
 
 I enquired of one of the company's porters 
 where I could get lodged for the night, and he 
 directed me to a coffee-house just outside the 
 gates, and offered to carry our baggage there; 
 but when we got to the gates the sentinel would 
 not let him go out. That the fellow knew well 
 enough, so I was obliged to have another to 
 carry it the other six yards. A double expense 
 to begin with. On Friday I found out Houldin's,
 
 LETTER ONE 19 
 
 and went there thinking that John might be able 
 to tell me where I could get a lodging; but, after 
 wasting all the morning, and being treated with 
 'London gin' at my own expense, I was as 
 forward as ever. In the afternoon I saw Horn- 
 blower, but I succeeded no better for that day 
 with him. He could do nothing for the first 
 two or three hours but tell me how glad he was 
 to see me, and stuff me with good things, and 
 he then took me through the streets till nearly 
 eight o'clock to show me the fine places. All 
 the time Clarinda was waiting at the coffee 
 house. The next morning he got me a very 
 comfortable lodging at a respectable house in 
 Hatton Gardens. We have a furnished room, 
 and a good sized dressing closet, where we keep 
 our bread and cheese, and our coals, &c., on the 
 fourth floor, for six shillings per week, and find 
 our own linen and crocks. Staying at the coffee 
 house was very expensive, but I was afraid of 
 going to strange lodgings, and am glad I did 
 not. We have got out of about 24s. since we 
 have been in London, though we have been as 
 careful as we could. 
 
 I can say nothing of how we are likely to 
 succeed at present, but I am in good spirits. We 
 were both so ill the first night after we got in
 
 20 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 that we could not get an hour's sleep, but are 
 much better. 
 
 I should very much like to have the dog, but 
 will write further about it in my next, if you 
 will be kind enough to keep him till then. 
 
 Send the remains of the things by the first 
 waggon. You had better put the brown paper 
 package in the rabbit pen, and be sure that the 
 boards are nailed do^vn on the top. 
 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 H. P. 
 
 Give my best love to my mother.
 
 LETTER TWO. 
 
 London, 
 December 6th, 1838. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 I received tlie goods all safe, and was much 
 refreshed with your kind letter, and am in 
 rather better spirits than when I wrote last 
 to you, having obtained two or three little 
 orders, and promise of more; but things are 
 as flat as they can be here at present, and 
 my situation is anything but agreeable. I think, 
 however, of putting my lathe and things up as 
 soon as I can get them from the waggon office 
 (which I cannot do till I can turn the few made- 
 up goods I brought with me into money), and 
 begin to do the little work which I have got, in 
 hopes of getting more when that is done. 
 
 My expectations of London have met with 
 
 21
 
 22 ^iV EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 disappointment in nearly every particular, but I 
 will not talk of that. You will remember that I 
 hinted to you that, in case I did not succeed in 
 London, I should go farther. I had almost for- 
 gotten that I ever had such thoughts, among 
 the fresh and astonishing scenes of this strange, 
 glorious place, till it seemed as if there was no 
 place for me among the countless multitude of 
 its inhabitants. My thoughts then returned to 
 emigration. 
 
 The information which we have obtained since 
 we have been here respecting Australia has 
 determined both Clarinda and myself to make 
 up our minds to emigrate to a land which holds 
 out prospects so bright and cheering to unhappy 
 Enorlishmen, thouo^h at the distance of sixteen 
 thousand miles. I have been to the GTovernment 
 emigration office to ascertain what assistance 
 they afford to mechanics wishing to emigrate, 
 and we can have a free passage, being young 
 and having no children. The first chartered 
 ship, I believe, will sail in March, and that 
 vessel, I trust, will convey us safe to Sydney. 
 In the meantime we have much to do, and I 
 must necessarily trouble you not a little. You 
 have ever been so kind to me, and have sacri- 
 ficed so much for my welfare, that I am ashamed
 
 LETTER TWO 23 
 
 to ask you for fnrtlier assistance ; but I hope a 
 time ■will come wlien I shall have it in my power 
 to prove my gratitude. 
 
 In the first place, as I must have a certificate 
 of my being of good character, to procure a free 
 passage, I want Maria to obtain signatures to it. 
 The persons whom I have selected as the best to 
 sign it are : Rev. Greorge Cheatle, minister of 
 Lombard-street chapel ; Mr. B. Hudson, book- 
 seller. Bull-street ; Mr. R. Matthison, stationer, 
 Edgbaston-street ; and Mr. Pickard, ironmonger, 
 Bull-street. I am not very well kno'svn to any 
 of these, least of all to Mr. Cheatle ; but the 
 certificate must be signed by a clergyman or 
 minister, and he is the only person of that class 
 who can know anything of me, from living in his 
 own neighbourhood and being with Mr. Houldin, 
 a near neighbour of his, so long, and my brother 
 George and his wife attending his chapel. I 
 think he must know enough of me to justify him 
 in signing a paper of no more consequence. I 
 have written a letter to him, which you will 
 deliver, and allow him to read before you ask 
 him for his signature. All I know of Mr. 
 Pickard is having sold him goods, which I got 
 up in Birmingham, and bought of him. My 
 knowledge of Mr. Hudson, and his of me, is
 
 24 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 similar. To liim I have written a letter, too. 
 Mr. Matthison knows me rather better. To the 
 signatui'es of these gentlemen I should like to 
 have added those of Mr. Porter, surgeon, Broms- 
 grove-street, Mr. Wright, thread manufacturer, 
 Bromsgrove-sti'eet ; but as I am in debt to Mr. 
 Porter, and have been for a shameful long time, 
 perhaps you had better not apply to him. I 
 leave that to you. Mr. Wright, having been 
 in the habit of seeino; me more or less for so 
 many years, must be a fitter person to judge of 
 my character than any of the above. If you 
 can get the signatures of all six, I shall be ex- 
 tremely glad. The certificates which they are 
 to sign are marked at the top of leaf No. 2 and 
 No 4, and each signature should comprise name, 
 calling, and place of residence. For example : 
 B, Hudson, bookseller, Birmingham. The other 
 two certificates are to be signed by Mr. Houldin, 
 my late master, only. They are marked No. 1 
 and No. 3; get these signed first. And then 
 Clarinda must have a certificate, also — that 
 marked No. 5 to be signed by Mr. Joseph 
 Hardy, paper manufacturer. Great Hampton 
 Row, and No. 6 to be signed by Mr. Cheatle, 
 Chester-street, and Mr. Derrington, town mis- 
 sionary, next door but one or two to Garrison
 
 LETTER TWO 25 
 
 Lane's Chapel. You will be kind enough to 
 explain to Mr. Cheatle — if you have any need 
 to do so — that the name was ' Varney ' at 
 the shop in Mosely-street ; also to the latter 
 gentleman, and that she was for seven years a 
 teacher in Garrison Lane's school. Be pleased 
 to have Mr. Cheatle's name first. 
 
 As we shall be about four months on our voy- 
 age, and as there is no washing allowed on board, 
 we must have at least fifteen changes of clothes, 
 &c., each, be they ever such poor ones. There- 
 fore the next thing I want is, if Eliza or my 
 mother can find time, and are able to do so, 
 for them to make some of these garments for 
 us, as fast as we can get them. 
 
 I must now speak of things more familiar. 
 First of all, of my little dog. If you, or someone 
 belonging to me, could keep him when I am 
 gone, I should be very glad, for that little, 
 unhappy animal seems a very part of my un- 
 happy heart. If he cannot be kept among you, 
 dispose of him in the best way you can. At any 
 rate be kind enough to keep him till I am gone. 
 With regard to the books, if you can sell any of 
 them or exchange any of them for cloth for 
 shirts, &c., I should be glad. ' Caleb Williams ' 
 and the ' Works of Shakespeare ' I should like
 
 26 AN EMIGRANT'S HOME LETTERS 
 
 for myself, but, of course, can do without tliem. 
 But secure enough to pay Mr. Anderson and to 
 pay the postage of letters from me. 
 
 I hope my father has some work to do — if he 
 is able to do it — and that my mother and Eliza 
 are as well as usual. Be sure to look at them 
 while they sign the papers, and see they do 
 not sign the wrong, Clarinda's being both on 
 the same leaf. Give our love to all. "We will 
 send you full particulars of our adopted country 
 before we go. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 H. PARKES. 
 
 December 7th. 
 P.S. — l^he money you sent will just do to get 
 the things from the waggon office, but there is 
 one thing that pains me in receiving it — the 
 thought of the injury which you must do your- 
 selves in being kind to me. 
 
 H. PARKES.
 
 LETTER THREE. 
 
 December 7th, 1838. 
 
 My Dear Sistee, 
 
 When we received your kind parcel, I liad just 
 finished a long letter to you, from which you will 
 learn we have got on rather better since my last. 
 I was quite overpowered with the sense of 
 your kindness towards us when I saw the four 
 half-crowns, which came as seasonably as unex- 
 pectedly, for we had only fourpence left when 
 we received them. Money does not go very far 
 here, everything almost that we have to buy 
 being dearer than it was in Birmingham. Coal, 
 for instance, is Is. 6d. cwt., mutton lOd. a 
 pound, potatoes Is. a pound, and everything is of 
 an inferior quality. We had one piece of bacon 
 since we have been here, and it tasted like soap 
 and fish mixed. The water comes out of the 
 Thames, which all the filth of the town is emptied 
 
 27
 
 28 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 into. They say it is cleansed before it comes to 
 us, but all I know is that it is quite yellow. This 
 water we must drink, as it is, in tea or coffee ; 
 as for milk, that is quite out of the question, 
 none under 4d. per quart ; and beer as good as 
 the worst in Birmingham, so far as I can learn, 
 would be a novelty. Gin is all the ' go * 
 with the Cockneys. But I am comforted on this 
 score with the thought that I shall be far away 
 when the droughty weather comes. The fogs, 
 too, choke us. The cats (for there are six or 
 seven at the house where we lodge) make horrid 
 noises day and night, but perhaps all Cockneys 
 do not think it necessary to keep as many as the 
 old ladies where we lodge, so I will not call that 
 a London nuisance. I tell you these bits of 
 news merely to make you merry, for I feel half 
 merry myself. 
 
 I am in high hopes of Australia, as well I may 
 be when I compare my chance of living there 
 with my chance of doing so here ; but I cannot 
 give you much information now or I should be 
 up all night. The colony of New South Wales 
 is three times as large as England, Scotland, 
 Ireland, and Wales, and as beautiful a country 
 as this. The soil produces almost everything 
 which this produces, together with pomegranates^
 
 LETTER THREE 29 
 
 oranges, lemons, figs, &c. Land can be bouglit 
 in some of the towns for seven pounds per acre, 
 in the second town in the colony for twenty 
 pounds, and in some parts of the country for five 
 shillings per acre. Mechanics can get foi^ty and 
 fifty shillings a week, and buy sugar for two 
 shillings a pound ; tea for two shillings ; beef, 
 twopence a pound ; wine, sixpence per bottle ; 
 rent, four shillings per week, Sydney, the 
 capital of the colony, contains 25,000 inhabitants. 
 However, my hopes are not extravagant, though 
 I make sure of getting rich and coming over 
 soon to fetch all of you. I had forgotten to say 
 the climate is the healthiest in the world. 
 
 I am very glad the dog gets on so well, and 
 hope you will be able to keep him for a play- 
 fellow for little Tom. I am very sorry they are 
 going to take my father's garden, but I wish he 
 was going with me to Australia, and he could 
 then buy a five shilling acre of land and make 
 another. And if you can persuade my mother 
 to live half a dozen years longer I would come 
 and fetch her too, and she should have a dairy ; 
 for cows are only four pounds each, the very 
 best. 
 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 HENRY PARKES.
 
 LETTER FOUR. 
 
 London, 
 Deceviher 20th, 1838. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 I delayed acknowledging tlie receipt of the 
 parcel containing tlie papers, &c., till I liad 
 ascertained whetlier or not we could go out in 
 the ship which sails on the 29th. I did not get 
 a decisive answer till last Tuesday, when I was 
 told that the list of the Roxburgh Castle 
 was made up, and we could not go by her, there 
 being eight or ten parties which she could not 
 take besides us. The next ship which we may 
 get a free passage by sails on the 26th 
 March next year. I hope we shall go then. 
 Not going now has sadly disheartened us both, 
 but it may be for the best. In case I should 
 
 30
 
 LETTER FOUR 31 
 
 not remind you again of it, all letters (wlienever 
 we go) should have time to reach, us two or three 
 days before the ship goes, as we must be on 
 board at least a day before she sails from 
 Gravesend, which is about twenty-six miles 
 from London. 
 
 I hope none of you are unhappy at the thought 
 of my leaving you, or will think much about me 
 when I am gone. However I may fare on the 
 opposite side of the globe, I do not think it can 
 much more darken my prospects of the future. 
 It is hard for me to think that I have seen my 
 dear father and mother, in all probability, for 
 the last time, but the thought is brightened by 
 the humiliating recollection that I have been 
 more a burden than a help to them, and the 
 hope that if we never meet again in this world 
 of change, we shall in a happier and changeless 
 one. Give my best love to them, and tell my 
 brothers to love them, and be more dutiful to 
 them than I have been, and give my love to my 
 sisters, Maria and Eliza. I wish you all a very 
 happy Christmas, though I shall not be with 
 you on that day. I shall think of you all a 
 thousand times in the solitude of our little room 
 in the heart of London, and I hope to spend 
 many a Christmas day with you, my brothers
 
 32 AN EMIGRANT'S HOME LETTERS 
 
 and sisters^ tliougli noue of us may be then young. 
 Thank Maria for the trouble she has had in 
 getting the signatures, and for all she had done 
 for me. We should be happy to hear from James, 
 and hope he had got into something likely to do 
 him good. Clarinda wrote to her father this 
 week, but did not enclose it in this parcel, as it 
 seemed more desirable to save you trouble than 
 him expense. We are both blessed with good 
 health for this unhealthy place, except that 
 Clarinda has an ugly cold, and I have been 
 murdered with the toothache for two or three 
 days; but neither of us is happy. I have 
 nothing to do at present; hope I shall have 
 after Christmas. 
 
 I send a small book, which contains a great 
 deal of information on the subject of Emigration 
 to Australia, and part of a journal of a voyage 
 to Sydney ; also ' Campbell's Poems,' among 
 which are some beautiful * Lines on the Depar- 
 tui-e of Emigrants to New South Wales.' Be 
 pleased to take particular care of this volume, 
 and return it in the course of a month ; also a 
 very interesting book entitled ' Carwell,' out of 
 which you may pick a good deal of knowledge 
 relative to New South Wales, but you must read 
 it quick, and return it if you are sending a
 
 LETTER FOUR 33 
 
 parcel next week, as it is a library book. The 
 other book you will be pleased to return also. 
 
 If I can get a regular job after Christmas till 
 we go I will send the money for my shoes by the 
 time appointed. 
 
 We have sent a few trifling things for you as 
 Xmas boxes. I wish we could have sent some- 
 thing better. For the present, farewell. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 H. PARKES.
 
 LETTER FIVE. 
 
 December 31st, 1838. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 I have just received your parcel. Am sorry 
 my mother is so ill, and hope she will be much 
 better by when you get this. Am extremely 
 glad my father is well. Shall be very glad of 
 the seeds. Thought of writing to him before 
 we went away for some, but there is plenty of 
 time yet. 
 
 We are both in the enjoyment of health at 
 present, but we have fared but badly since 
 the date of my last, having been two or 
 three days without anything to eat, in- 
 cluding Christmas day, except that on that 
 day we were made to taste Miss Irvine's plum- 
 pudding and wine, which we were by no means
 
 LETTER FIVE 35 
 
 unwilling to do. I tramped about London 
 Christmas Eve for five or six hours to sell some 
 work, but did not then succeed in doing so, nor 
 till the following Thursday, when I could only 
 get about half my price in Birmingham. Things 
 are here so extremely awkward. I tell these 
 things to you merely because I do not feel 
 justified in hiding any portion of the gloomy side 
 of the picture before me from so kind and dear 
 a friend as you have ever proved to me ; or if I 
 had another motive for doing so, it is because I 
 shall be able to look upon my distresses with 
 more fortitude when I know there are those, 
 though at a distance, who sympathise with me 
 in them. But believe me, I do not tell you of 
 my misery to make you miserable. Oh no ! I 
 hope you will not be more unhappy on my 
 account than if I was living in the most perfect 
 prosperity, though I wish your sympathy in 
 believing I do not deserve all I suffer. 
 
 I am glad the dog gets fat and forgetful of his 
 old master. I suppose he would have nothing 
 to do with me now. However, I wish the old 
 beggar a long life, and much of the good things 
 by the way, and an easy death at the end. 
 
 I am very thankful for your arrangements 
 respecting the clothes, and Clarinda's thanks to
 
 36 AN EMIGE ANT'S HOME LETTERS 
 
 her Aunt, when you see her father again. I 
 shall not answer my brother's letter at present, 
 as I may have more to say before we go. 
 
 Any information which my father can give me 
 respecting the getting of land may be of use to 
 me till such time as he comes out to the 'land 
 of promise ' himself, which I shall depend on 
 his doing in a year or two; though he must 
 recollect that December and January are summer 
 months in New South Wales, and that they have 
 two harvests in a year. I send the Dispatch 
 newspaper, which contains part of a letter just 
 received from Sydney, and from an uninterested 
 party, which you will see is very encouraging to 
 emigrants. I feel confident James would do 
 exceedingly well there, but he must judge for 
 himself. 
 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 H. P. 
 
 P.S. — Give our love to our parents and 
 brothers and sisters, and Tom and the dog con- 
 jointly, as he is his bedfellow. Many thanks for 
 the pie. It was good ! 
 
 Perhaps 1 shall not send you again under 
 three weeks or a month, on account of expense.
 
 LETTER SIX. 
 
 January 1st, 1836. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 I am obliged to send to you again, so soon 
 upon my last letter, as I expect we shall embark 
 much earlier than I stated to you. A ship goes 
 on the 29th of this month, and I believe we shall 
 go in that. My chief reason for writing now 
 is that we must have a certificate of being in 
 sound health from a respectable medical man. I 
 send a form of one on this sheet. You will be 
 pleased to get Mr. Porter, or if he has left the 
 town, Mr. Charles Porter, to sign it, since I 
 never had any other medical attendant, and the 
 gentleman who attended Clarinda has left the 
 country, so that it is impossible to apply to him. 
 
 37
 
 38 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 All that it affirms lie could readily ascertain by 
 applying to Mr. Houldin and Clarinda's friends. 
 If you can possibly get all the signatures by 
 Thursday afternoon send them in a parcel to 
 me the same evening. Take it to the Albion 
 coach office early enough, say four or five o'clock, 
 so that I shall be sure to get them at the office 
 here the next morning. I would rather have 
 the certificates in Mr. Porter's own writing. I 
 only have written this that it may be something 
 like the prescribed printed form of the Govern- 
 ment emigration committee, but the one I send 
 will do. 
 
 The clothes can be made up on the passage. 
 If you can exchange any of the books for cloth 
 iOr them, or stockings that would do for either 
 of us, or four or five handkerchiefs, you will 
 befriend us. If Booker would make my shoes, 
 and you think you could pay him in two months 
 after I am gone, I should be very glad to have 
 them. 
 
 I shall write to my father, to Eliza, and to my 
 brothers before I go. I think you will hear from 
 us if we go this month about next October, but 
 not before. I shall send to you once or twice 
 before we go. 
 
 Clarinda will want half a pound of white
 
 LETTER SIX 39 
 
 cotton and shirt buttons, if you can exchange 
 books for them. Give our best love to all friends. 
 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 H. PARKES.
 
 LETTER SEVEN. 
 
 London, 
 January 28th, 1839. 
 
 My Dear Sistee, 
 
 This letter, I hope, will find you all well at 
 Birmingham. Clarinda and myself are neither 
 one thing or another. I have at last obtained 
 a situation in one of the oldest and largest turn- 
 ing manufactories in London. I have been there 
 two weeks to-morrow. The work which I am upon 
 is so heavy that it almost masters me — having 
 to turn twine boxes (such as you see on trades- 
 men's counters), which take 2 cwt. of wood to 
 one dozen. I think we are certain to leave the 
 country in March, but shall know more about it 
 next week. We shall have a hard struggle till 
 then, but I hope we shall be able to get through 
 it. I have been obliged to part with many of 
 
 40
 
 LETTER SEVEN 41 
 
 my tools since Xmas, to buy us bread, as we 
 cannot live in London for less than 20s. per 
 week, including rent ; but I hope I shall be able 
 to get as many in their place as will enable me 
 to carry on the turning at Sydney. If you have 
 the calico, please to send it for Clarinda to work 
 upon, and let me hear from you as soon as you 
 can, as we are very anxious to learn how my 
 father and mother and all of you are. I am 
 sorry I have no money to send for the shoes at 
 present. Please to let Thomas take the small 
 parcel to Mr. Knott's, Swan Hotel Yard — need 
 not wait for answer. More in my next. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 H. PARKES. 
 Our love to all.
 
 LETTER EIGHT. 
 
 London, 
 February 10th, 1839. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 We received your letter dated January 27 on 
 February 1st. We were glad to hear from you 
 — it seemed so long since your last. Were ex- 
 tremely sorry, but not surprised, to hear of dear 
 mother being so ill. I hope she is now restored to 
 her usual health. We were much hurt by your 
 account of the unfavourable circumstances at- 
 tendant on Maria's journey, and sincerely hope 
 she is perfectly recovered from her distressing 
 illness. We hope, too, that by this time your 
 own severe cold ' has had its day and been for- 
 gotten.' We ourselves are both rather poorly. 
 
 I have not been able to see Bell's Life, but 
 tell my father that my high hopes are undimini-
 
 LETTER EIGHT 43 
 
 shed ; tliat I have no doubt of being happy and 
 prosperous in Australia. And I have much 
 better opportunities of getting correct informa- 
 tion on the subject here than you in Birmingham 
 can have. With respect to the tales of private 
 individuals^ they in general are altogether un- 
 worthy of attention. There is a person lodging 
 in the house where we live, who has been to 
 Sydney. And there was a surgeon's family in 
 the rooms under ours, when we came, who went 
 out at their own expense last month ; but we 
 never asked a single question of either party. 
 A girl that was apprenticed to Miss Irvine went 
 out to New South Wales some years ago. She 
 returned to England about four years ago, the 
 wife of a celebrated missionary. She made 
 Miss Irvine's her home during her stay in Lon- 
 don. After laying out several hundreds of 
 pounds in expensive articles of furniture she 
 went back again to New South Wales, more 
 glad again to leave than she was when she ar- 
 rived in her native country. So you see we 
 could obtain some news about Australia without 
 going far afield, but we can go to sources so 
 much superior that it would be waste of time 
 to do so. That an ^official' account should 
 appear in the True Sun, or any other paper.
 
 44 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 to discourage persons from emigrating, quite 
 puzzles me. If it is meant by ' official ' tliat 
 it issues from the Colonial Government, when it 
 is the Colonial Government that is paying for 
 the passage of the hundreds of emigrants who 
 are continually being sent out, not only from 
 England, Scotland, and Ireland, but from France, 
 Italy, and other places on the Continent, I 
 think Mr. J. Yarney must have been mistaken, 
 if the report he saw was concerning New South 
 Wales, as to the ' officialness ' of its character. 
 However, he is not likely to be injured by going 
 to Australia ; for assuredly no man will reach 
 there who falls back at the first, or the hun- 
 dredth, evil report he hears concerning the 
 country. 
 
 I think leaving Birmingham was the best 
 step we ever took, and I think leaving London 
 will be the next best. We have suffered a great 
 deal since we have been in London. Were 
 obliged to pawn almost everything we had 
 before I could get anything to do. I had some 
 difficulty in obtaining my present situation. The 
 reason they took me in was this : they had but 
 one man in the manufactory who would under- 
 take the work which I am upon, it is so ex- 
 cessively heavy, and he would rather have
 
 LETTER EIGHT 45 
 
 nothing to do witli it ; so they offered me a trial 
 at this hard job, though, as I came from the 
 country, they seemed to doubt whether I should 
 be able to manage it, as it is also rather a difficult 
 job ; but the}^ say now that I am quite an adept 
 at it, and I believe they would rather I stayed 
 with them than went to Australia. We were 
 also a little behind with our rent. I can get, 
 by working hard, about five or six shillings a 
 day, but have not been able to make near full 
 time, owing to having to go to the emigration 
 office, and one thing and another. It is a very 
 difficult thing to get a free passage. They would 
 not even let me leave my certificates till last 
 Monday, though I tendered them time after 
 time. They would not give me a passage at 
 first, because I was a turner, as persons of such 
 a trade as mine must, when they get to Sydney, 
 work on their own account. They take it for 
 granted that persons who are taken out free of 
 expense have not the means to do otherwise. 
 There are crowds of applicants every day at 
 the emigration office for them to choose out of, 
 and they keep them back and put them off from 
 time to time, very vexatiously, it seems to me, 
 to try whether they are really anxious and re- 
 solved upon going, lest persons should go out
 
 46 ^.V EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 of a mere capricious love of change. They will 
 not take anybody who has a young and helpless 
 family, except such mechanics as carpenters^ 
 masons, smiths, shoemakers, etc., etc., who will 
 be sure to earn enough to provide for them 
 when they get there. Agricultural labourers 
 cannot earn so much, therefore they are scrupu- 
 lous at taking such of this class as emigrants as 
 have families, and they will endeavour to as- 
 certain whether you can pay for your passage 
 yourself before they will agree to take you. 
 Mr. Marshall told me, when I was speaking 
 about James, that he must pay for his boy him- 
 self; if it is so, the child's passage will cost £8, 
 but I hope they will yet agree to take him free. 
 We shall see when they have the certificates. 
 My plan is, if I get tools again to take out 
 with me, to get a job at farm work or anything 
 else that offers itself till I can save money 
 enough to begin to work on my own account, 
 unless something better should turn out for me. 
 If I cannot take tools with me I must wait till 
 I can obtain them from England, as I do not 
 expect they can be procured nearer, which will 
 be a monstrous calamity. It is said that a few 
 turners might work profitably on their own 
 account at Sydney. Still, however, I think it
 
 LETTER EIGHT 47 
 
 is not improbable that I may get hold of some- 
 thing better. The country is the best place for 
 making money, A man of good common sense 
 and active habits^ if he can but save a little to 
 begin with, may get rich there in no time. I 
 have no doubt of James getting on. I think he 
 will have a better chance than I shall ; at any 
 rate at first. But persons going to a strange 
 country, where everyone is taught only to take 
 care of himself, and going there friendless and 
 without money, must expect to meet with difii- 
 culties, and to suffer privations and hardships. 
 If I do not meet with such I shall indeed be 
 disappointed. 
 
 Do not be at the expense of sending the two 
 books, or anything- else that we can do without, 
 as instead of being able to send you any money 
 for what you have already done for us, I find 
 from a calculation which I have made that I shall 
 be £4 short, unless something unforeseen turns 
 out in getting the tools, which I ought by no 
 means to omit taking with me. I shall be sure 
 to go from England penniless, but I have some 
 hope of getting something to do on the ship, at 
 which I may earn a pound or two during our 
 voyage, and if I can do so, it may be of the 
 greatest use to us when we arrive at Sydney. I
 
 48 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 suppose we are sure to go next month. Tlie ship 
 Lady Raffles, which leaves Gravesend on 27th 
 of March, finally leaves Plymouth on the 8th 
 April, If we go in her everything should be 
 here by this day six weeks at the latest. 
 
 If James and his wife have linen to last them 
 for a month, Clarinda and Anne can make the 
 other on the voyage, but they must bring the 
 cloth ready washed. James will have no time 
 to lose. Tell him, and also John Varney, if you 
 see him again, the substance of this letter as far 
 as relates to emigration. 
 
 You will see an interesting account of the 
 effects of transportation on society in New South 
 Wales in the number of Chamhers' Edinburgh 
 Journal sent. 
 
 We have paid our rent out of the money which 
 we made of the woodwork of the lathe, and other 
 things brought from Birmingham. We could 
 not take them with us. 
 
 I send the paper which you had before, for 
 you to keep for anyone to see who thinks of 
 following us. Also a small pamphlet, which you 
 can keep for the same purpose. 
 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 HENRY PARKES.
 
 LETTER EIGHT 49 
 
 P.S. — Give our sincere and united love to our 
 beloved father^ and motlier^ and to Maria, Eliza, 
 James and family, George and wife, Thomas, 
 dog, cat, and all. Tell my mother I am only 
 unhappy when I think of her.
 
 LETTER NINE. 
 
 London, 
 February 12th, 1839. 
 
 My Deae Sister, 
 
 Among other tilings, we must get you or 
 Maria, some time before your last parcel, to go 
 to Edgbaston cliurcli and obtain two certificates 
 of our marriage. They will cost a shilling each. 
 You must ask of the sexton, or beadle, for Mr. 
 Harrison, the clerk. The best time, I think, 
 would be on a Monday morning, between nine 
 and ten o'clock, or Sunday morningbef ore service. 
 Perhaps the latter time would be the best. 
 
 Tell James if he should want to buy any shoes 
 before he goes that he can get them cheapest in 
 London. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 H. PARKES. 
 
 50
 
 LETTER TEN. 
 
 London, 
 March 1st, 1839. 
 
 My Deae Sister, 
 
 We received your last parcel on Sunday, and 
 were very much rejoiced to learn that father and 
 mother were then both better. 
 
 I am rather unwell, and unable to stick to my 
 work as closely as I ought to do. The consequence 
 of which, together with having to lose time for 
 other purposes, is that I do not earn more than 
 it just takes to keep us. This week I shall not 
 earn sufficient. I have had a slight cough ever 
 since I have been in London, which comes upon 
 me chiefly at night, and is worse now than it 
 ever has been. I also have a kind of soreness 
 and stiffness at my chest, and can get no com- 
 fortable sleep. I verily believe I have not had
 
 52 AN EMIGRANT'S HOME LETTERS 
 
 a good ni gilt's rest since I have been up here. 
 What sleep I do get seems to oppress me more 
 than refresh me, and is very broken* Being pent 
 in a frowsy London garret, with no one to speak 
 to, not even a dog, and breathing the same 
 impure air from week's end to week's end, has 
 made Clarinda very poorly, and half unhappy. 
 Nevertheless, tell my father and mother and 
 all who enquire after us that we are well and 
 happy, as I believe we both shall be when we 
 leave this irksome place. 
 
 I shall not write more than one other letter to 
 you before we go, and that on the last day 
 before we join the ship, because of the expense, 
 so I shall endeavour to say all I have to say in 
 this. I have strong hopes of getting a good 
 situation as soon as I arrive at Sydney, as all who 
 have hitherto gone out in Mr. Marshall's ships 
 have been engaged within a week of the time of 
 landing, and if I get a situation at £50 or £60 
 per year and provisions and a house to live in, I 
 shall be able to send some money home in a 
 year and a half from the present time, and 
 enough soon to pay all I owe at Birmingham. 
 And that will be a happy time with me. I shall 
 write to you by the first homeward boiind vessel 
 we meet after we have been out eight or ten
 
 LETTEB TEN 53 
 
 weeks, so you may expect to hear from us in about 
 six months, and again at the end of m year. And 
 T hope I shall he able to tell you how I like New 
 South Wales. I wish Maria could come up to 
 London before we go, for I should dearly like to 
 look upon some one of you again, but I know it 
 cannot be, and blame myself for naming it. 
 
 With respect to the likeness, I would rather 
 no more was said abovit it, as I am unable, how- 
 ever cheaply it was done, to be at the expense, 
 and I am most unwilling you should be, but I 
 leave the matter with you. If things were not 
 so very awkward I should dearly like for you to 
 have both mine and Clarinda's. Yon may get 
 a portrait, a pretty good likeness, for about six or 
 seven shillings. I do not mean one of those 
 black profiles. 
 
 I must now conclude with many thanks and 
 good wishes. 
 
 Give our sincere love to all. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 H. PARKES.
 
 LETTER ELEVEN. 
 
 LONDOX, 
 
 February 13th, 1SS9. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 I am quite out of patience to receive James's 
 certificates, as there is now not a minute's time for 
 him to lose if he is to go on the 27th of next month. 
 When I wrote the letter which you receive with 
 this I was surprised I had not heard from him, 
 but made sure I should hear in a day or two, or 
 [ should have sent it off then, requesting him to 
 send me the papers immediately. I am very 
 unwilling to trouble you before I hear, but dare 
 not delay any longer, lest you should not have 
 received my last parcel safe. If by chance you 
 have not done so, let James have directly the 
 printed emigration paper, which you will find in 
 the present parcel. He will find a foi-m of 
 
 54
 
 LETTER ELEVEN 55 
 
 certificate on the second page of it, and can get 
 the clergyman or some other gentleman at 
 Yardley to write him a certificate from it, stating 
 explicitly what he is competent of doing, etc., 
 etc., and get it signed as respectably as he can, 
 and as soon as possible, and send it to me, 
 together with a certificate of his marriage, and 
 one of yonng William's age. 
 
 If you should have sent to me before you 
 receive this, when I get hold of the papers I 
 will lose no time in going to the ofiice, and will 
 write vou asuin about the middle of next week. 
 
 The last parcel I sent off about a fortnight 
 ago. 
 
 I have not much more time, nor have I much 
 more to say at present. Give our sincere love to 
 all our friends, and may God bless you all now 
 and for ever. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 H. PARKES.
 
 LETTER TWELVE. 
 
 London, 
 February 17th, 1839. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 We received your last parcel on Friday after- 
 noon, and were botli very sorry to hear of poor 
 father's misfortune, and sincerely hope he is now 
 recovering, and that you will be able to inform 
 us in your next that he is quite out of danger. 
 We hope that poor mother is also much better, 
 though we know too surely that her allotted 
 portion in this distressful world will be little else 
 than pain and bitterness. This we know, alas ! 
 and have not the power to assuage one single 
 sorrow that oppresses her. But her time here 
 is short. We feel it is so, and that we shall never 
 again behold that careworn countenance, which 
 no transient light but that of the love she felt 
 
 56
 
 LETTER TWELVE 57 
 
 for her children ever softened into a liappy 
 look. Poor dear mother ! How good a mother 
 she has been to me ! How glad when I have 
 been successful in any little undertaking ! How 
 desirous to help me when I have been in any 
 little difficulty ! Oh ! how happy I have been 
 in that little old home in Moseley-street, after 
 my day's work was done at the brickyard, as I 
 have sat by the fire in my clayey clothes, and 
 she took my hand and held it in her's, and told 
 me parts of Robinson Crusoe to while away the 
 dull hours till you came home from Attsop's. 
 Yes, I was happy then, though dear father was 
 lying in a distant debtor's prison. 
 
 Beloved father and mother, I feel as if they 
 were already in their graves. A father and 
 mother bowed down with years of affliction, and 
 steeped in poverty and wretchedness. The very 
 thought seems to make me unhappy for ever, 
 when I know that half the circumference of the 
 globe will shortly lie between us. Farewell, my 
 father and mother, my fond affectionate parents. 
 God Almighty bless them, and provide for their 
 few remaining" years better than I can hope they 
 will be pi'ovided for. May they be daily sur- 
 prised with comforts, and may floods of unex- 
 pected joy continually descend into their hearts.
 
 58 AN EMIGHANTS HOJIK LETTF.BS 
 
 Another letter, and another, antl perhaps 
 another, and then my next letter will be dated 
 on the l)lue, wide ocean, where I can have no 
 answer — and then more than a long weary year 
 must pass away before I can hear from you 
 again. Yes, my beloved sister, I shall soon 
 leave you, even as you come to me in your 
 affectionate letters. The very name of Bir- 
 mingham will no longer meet my eye, except 
 when I unconsciously write it on some part of 
 the ship that bears me over the beaming waters, 
 or on some gloomy tree in the wilderness of 
 Australia. I shall hear no more of Birmingham 
 except from my own tongue, or from my weep- 
 ing wife's, Avhen we think of those dear friends 
 who live there, and of those angel-infants of our 
 own, who sleep there in their little graves. And 
 when I do hear from you again, will it be of 
 death ? Alas ! my forebodings are very painful. 
 Still, I hope it will be far othei-wise. I hope, 
 though I hope with trembling, that I shall hear 
 of your being happier, far happier, than when I 
 leave you. 
 
 If we go alone (and they will not take my 
 brother unless he can pay for his son's passage), 
 the thought of you will be all we shall have to 
 relieve us from our loneliness, and that thought
 
 LKTTEB TWELVE 5;) 
 
 will be mingled with tJie last of our lives, should 
 we meet with a watery grave. 
 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 HENRY PARKES. 
 
 P.S. — 1 suppose we shall be certain to go in 
 the Lady Rafies, March 27th, as Mr. Marshall 
 has promised to take us. She is a ver}'' fine 
 ship, 1000 tons burden, frive our sincere love 
 to our parents, and to all.
 
 LETTER THIRTEEN. 
 
 London, 
 February 18, 1839. 
 
 My Dear Father, 
 
 My sister, in a letter which i received last 
 Friday, informed me of your sudden and alarm- 
 ing illness; but I hope you are now much better, 
 and trust that I shall learn from her next letter 
 that you are safel}^ restored to your former state 
 of health. I had the pain of learning from the 
 same letter of the increased illness of my poor 
 mother. This did not surprise me, but I sin- 
 cerely hope I shall be surprised the next time I 
 hear from yini by the assurance of her being 
 more comfortable and happy. He Avho, in His 
 wisdom and chastening^ love, has so lona* and so 
 heavily afflicted my beloved mother, and who 
 now has brought you, my dear father, to the 
 
 60
 
 LETTER THIRTEEN (il 
 
 very door of death — He, and only He, can sup- 
 port you both in your trials and distresses, and 
 I trust He will. I sincerely hope that the Father 
 of all mercies, in the exercise of his unbounded 
 goodness, will provide for you in your last days, 
 and bless you as you descend into the grave. 
 And when I can no longer, or but seldom, hear 
 how you fare in this world of trouble, you may 
 be far happier than I ever knew you. Trusting 
 that I shall soon hear that both of yon are much 
 better, I remain, my dear father. 
 
 Your affectionate son, 
 
 HENRY PARKES. 
 
 Accept, dear parents, the united love of 
 Clarinda and myself.
 
 LETTER FOURTEEN. 
 
 London, 
 March 10th, 1839. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 We received your last on Friday afternoon, 
 and were very glad to hear that all were then so 
 well. Hope my dear mother will continue so, 
 and that my father is quite recovered. I am 
 afraid they must be suffering very much in con- 
 sequence of my father not being alile to Avork. 
 It also grieves me to think how much you must 
 be injuring yourself to assist me. 
 
 With respect to my brother James and his 
 going to Australia, I believe he has never yet 
 thought deeply enough on so great an under- 
 taking: as that of removing^ to the distance of 
 sixteen thousand miles. The distance is tre- 
 mendous, when the globe itself is but twenty-
 
 LETTER FOURTEEN 63 
 
 four thousand miles round, and 1 think he has 
 got hold of the notion which many persons have, 
 that Government is glad to get anyone willing 
 to go — as if they only sought the pleasuie of 
 paying £40 or £50 to enable one and another 
 family, whom they know nothing of, to remove 
 from this country to New South Wales ! The 
 funds for the purpose of free emigration are 
 raised only from the sale of land in the colon}'^, 
 and, therefoi-e, anyone may know it must he hut 
 limited. There are only six or seven ships going 
 in the course of the present year from London 
 which take out emigrants free of expense, '^lliese 
 ships are far superior to any other that go to 
 Sydney, and always sail on the appointed <lays, 
 consequently more persons who pay their own 
 passage will go out in these ships than in any 
 other; so that only a few, to make up the ship's 
 number, go out free, perhaps not more than four 
 or five families in a ship on an average, for it is 
 not likely that they will take persons at the 
 expense of Government if others will go at their 
 own expense. Mr. Marshall ottered to take 
 James at the payment of £9 for William. He 
 and his wife and child would have been taken 
 sixteen thousand miles, and wholly provided for 
 during the voyage for less than eleven shillings
 
 64 AN EMIGRANTS E03IE LETTERS 
 
 per week, saying lie was sixteen weeks on the 
 voyage. It will cost him a deal more than that 
 to live at home during the time, and suppose he 
 has no work, or very little ! It seems strange 
 to me that he could not find the money, but it is 
 too late to talk of this now. 
 
 One certificate of marriage will do if j^ou have 
 not already obtained them. Please send the 
 broken saAvs and old pattern cards as they are. 
 The hand-saw from Atkin's should be about 27 
 inches from the handle. I think that is about 
 the size, but am not certain. I should very 
 much like to take with me a carpenter's brace 
 and bits, as I feel certain it would be of immense 
 use to me, but am afraid I shall not be able to 
 do so. However, I shall be obliged to you if 
 you will ascertain the price (as all such things 
 are much dearer in London than with you), and 
 send me word in your next. Mr. Edmonds^ in 
 the Horse Fair, opposite Thorpe-street, Avhom, 
 you will remember, I did some work for about 
 two years ago, is a maker of them. I believe 
 there are 36 bits to the brace. You will only 
 have the trouble of delivering the note directed 
 to him, and waiting an answer. I shall send my 
 last parcel the latter end of this week, and if I 
 can have it I will send the money then.
 
 LETTER FOURTEEN 65 
 
 Ask my fathei' to be pleased to write to me, 
 if it is only two oi' three lines, in your next. I 
 shall write to Cleorge, to Eliza, and to Tom, in 
 my last parcel. 
 
 Yours trul}', 
 
 H. PARKES.
 
 LETTER FIFTEEN. 
 
 London, 
 March W, 183!J. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 I received your kind letter but I know not 
 how to answer it. Mv heart feels bursting' with 
 gratitude to you all. I can only thank you now, 
 but may I live to see the happy day when we 
 shall get all of you who are willing to Australia. 
 I will then try to show you how thankful I am. 
 My Henry is too bad to sa}'^ I am unhappy. T 
 shall never be uuhapp}^ while 1 have him to 
 make me happy. But I have been very uneasy 
 about my father. I was afraid I should not even 
 get a letter from him, and the shilling was more 
 than I expected. You have only seen a specimen 
 of what he has been to me for the last ten or 
 twelve years. But he is my father, and I do
 
 LETTER FIFTEEN 67 
 
 love liim; you can, therefore, guess what I have 
 felt. I thank you for asking him to send me 
 something, but do not ask him again. It must 
 be so unpleasant to yourself. I feel more happy 
 now that I have heard from him. I am in very 
 good spirits, and though I am a little ill 
 sometimes, I think I am stronger than I used 
 
 to be I am very glad we are 
 
 going, for I believe if we were to stay in London 
 it would kill Henry outright in a short time. 
 Thank my sister Maria for the dress ; I like it 
 very much. . . . Give my love to Thomas, 
 I often think how he will be altered when 
 we see him again, and to poor mother, too. We 
 often think of her and weep. I am glad the 
 dog will not let anyone hurt Maria. I hope he 
 will take the same care of all of you. Give my 
 love to dear father and mother, and then a long 
 farewell, and may God bless you till we meet 
 again. 
 
 Your affectionate sister, 
 
 CLARINDA PARKES. 
 
 P.S. — My father is under a mistake about my 
 Uncle Taylor. He is at Hobart's Town in Van 
 Diemen's Land. We shall go six thousand 
 miles beyond there.
 
 68 AN EBIIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 P.S. by H. P. — My good lady has made a bit 
 of a mistake in this last statement. Hobart's 
 Town is not very many days from Sydney. 
 
 Note. — I have given only extracts from this letter, as it 
 refers mainly to things vrhich her sisters-in-law offered to 
 provide for my mother during the voyage. The letter has 
 pinned to it the following note from Maria Parkes : — ' The 
 one shilling named was obtained from Mr. Varney, by my 
 sister Sarah, after two hours' hard talking to him on behalf 
 of his daughter, — M.P.' 
 
 A. T. P
 
 LETTER SIXTEEN. 
 
 London, 
 March 17th, 1839. 
 
 My Dear Sisters, 
 
 We received your parcel tliis afternoon, and 
 were quite surprised witli the heap of things you 
 have sent. I fear you are suffering very much 
 yourselves by helping us so greatly. I am very 
 sorry you had to pay so much for the certificates. 
 The sovereign which Clarinda's aunt sent came 
 very well-timed, or we should have had to leave 
 some of our things in pawn, as I was unable to 
 earn much at work last week. Cannot have the 
 brace now, but never mind about it. Keep the 
 paper, as I shall very likely send for some tools 
 when I send to you from Sydney. Am sorry you 
 have had so much trouble to no purpose. Am 
 extremely thankful to you for everything. T
 
 70 AN EMIGRANT'S HOME LETTERS 
 
 could not have gone if it had not been for you. 
 Could not even have come from Birmingham if 
 it had not been for you, but I trust I shall soon 
 be able to repay you. Please to let Thomas put 
 the note so directed into the editor's box of the 
 Journal office. There are some verses of mine 
 in The Charter newspaper of this day (17th), and 
 I expect more will be in the next two or three 
 numbers ; the price is sixpence. Please to send 
 me a Journal of next Saturday by post as soon 
 as it is out. 
 
 I like all the things very much. I am very 
 anxious now to get off. I think we shall be sure 
 to earn a little money on the voyage some way 
 or other. If I get a situation I will obtain £10 
 and send with my first letter from Sydney. 
 
 Will write a farewell to you last thing, as 
 much as a sheet of paper will hold. Have no 
 
 more time now. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 H. PARKES. 
 
 Give my love and Clarinda's to my dear father 
 and mother.
 
 LETTER SEVENTEEN. 
 
 London, 
 Sunday, March 24th. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 Once more, and for the last time in England, 
 I thank you for your unspeakable kindness. I 
 go witli a liappy heart, in hope of rendering 
 you assistance in future. Tell my dear father I 
 "was never more surprised than when we received 
 the £1 from him, knowing the sacrifice he must 
 have made to send it ; but this only rendered it 
 more valuable to us, and us more gr^keful to him. 
 
 Tell my dear mother the "v^ill be kept 
 
 by us as long as we live in remembr .nee of her. 
 Thank father for the garden seeMS. I have 
 bought half a pint of the best sorts of marrow- 
 fat peas, also half a pint of scarlet runners, and 
 some fine carrot seed, and tell him I know how 
 
 71
 
 72 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 to plant tliem all. I do hope tliat he will see 
 my garden if I have one^ but do not tell him so 
 now on account of his and poor mother's feel- 
 ings. Would that I could hope to see them and 
 all of you again ; but if things should turn out 
 well I hope we shall be able to send for you, 
 Maria^ and Thomas, and then if my dear father 
 is living, and we should find the climate likely 
 to agree with him, I hope he will come and end 
 his days in peace and happiness with us all. 
 
 Your brother has got quite into favour here. 
 He is quite idolized by the old ladies where we 
 live, and he is called 'a poet' by The Charter 
 of yesterday. He has had no end of presents 
 from people whom he has not known many 
 months. One old gentleman made him a pre- 
 sent of an ivory tablet, a set of reading books, 
 and a shoe-lift, and paper knife, worth twelve 
 or fourteen shillings. Another made him a 
 present of a very handsome rule and several 
 other things. You will see what The Charter 
 of yesterday says in Answers to Correspon- 
 dents relative to his song in the week's before. 
 Should we not like to hear his song sung by 
 some great man at some public dinner ! but we 
 bid ^farewell' to England and he shall write 
 songs in his bark hut in Australia. Has not my
 
 LETTER SEVENTEEN 73 
 
 father's wife been kind^ never to send me the 
 least thing in the world, and yet she thinks 
 she is entitled to the name of 'mother/ but I 
 think she does not act 'mother-like! ' 
 
 I have seen the fine park and the Queen's 
 palace and the Queen's carriage, but they are 
 not, all of them, worth a fig to see. The park, 
 crowded with people like a fair, the palace, 
 guarded everywhere with soldiers with their 
 bayonets fixed ; 1 would rather walk in a rural 
 lane than in such places, where you can go so 
 far and no farther, without being stopped by a 
 soldier with a bayonet in his hand. There are 
 fine seats under the trees for people to sit upon ; 
 but there are also great cannons stuck all about, 
 and policemen here, there, and everywhere. 
 
 I like not the grandeur and misery of this 
 
 great place, and picture to myself more beauty 
 
 and happiness even on the wide, wide ocean, on 
 
 which I shall soon be. The next time I write I 
 
 will tell you all the wonders I see there. Till 
 
 then, a long, long farewell. Give my love to 
 
 mother, father, brothers, sisters and nephew. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 CLARINDA PARKES. 
 
 Note. — The relatives mentioned in thia letter by my 
 mother are all her husband's relations. 
 
 A. T. P.
 
 LETTER EIGHTEEN. 
 
 London, 
 March 25th, 1839. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 We received your last kind parcel this after- 
 noon. We received the other two both together 
 last Wednesday, all safe. We are glad that 
 you are all still pretty well at Birmingham. I 
 am about as I have been for the last month or 
 two. Clarinda is very unwell. She went to a 
 physician to-day, who prescribed her some 
 medicine, which she has got from the druggist's. 
 I trust she will soon be better. We are both, 
 notwithstanding this, in good spirits, and much 
 happier than we have been. The saw, I think, 
 is a prime one. My ^Farewell' will appear in 
 the Village Magazine for next month (Tyas, 
 Cheapside). Hornblower works on it, and has 
 
 74
 
 LETTER EIGHTEEN 75 
 
 struck me off a few copies^ some of which I send 
 to you. You will see that the editor of the 
 journal has sadly mutilated it, but I do not 
 think he has altered it for the 'worser.' 
 
 With respect to my brothers, I hope they 
 have no unkind feelings towards me. I know 
 no reason why they should, and I trust they 
 have not. I love them both and I sincerely 
 wish they may possess all the happiness this life 
 can afford. And now with respect to the por- 
 trait. I had not a shilling left this morning, 
 except the 7s. you sent to pay for it, just enough 
 to take us to Gravesend, therefore I think you 
 will not blame me for not applying the money 
 to the purpose you intended, as I had none to 
 pay the dock charges on my baggage when I 
 got to Grravesend. My boxes were put on board 
 in London last Friday. It was a misunderstand- 
 ing of mine that I should have to go to Graves- 
 end with the baggage. The ship lay in the 
 London Dock till within this last day or two. I 
 do not think it will be practicable to write again 
 before I arrive at the Cape of Good Hope. I 
 am not sure of landing at Plymouth, as the ship 
 will be out at anchor, so that I should have to 
 go on shore by a boat, which, of course, I should 
 have to pay for.
 
 76 AN EMIGRANTS II03IE LETTERS 
 
 Tuesday morning, six o'cloclc. 
 March 26th. 
 
 We shall be on our way down the river to join 
 the ship at Gravesend now in an hour or two. 
 Clarinda is rather better this morning than 
 yesterday. We shall sail to-morrow^ but may 
 be six or seven days before we get round the 
 coast to Plymouth, if we have unfavourable 
 winds, and we may get there in two days. 
 You may expect to hear from us in about four 
 months, and again in about a year. The name 
 of the ship is Strathjieldsaye — a queer name, is 
 it not ? We have every prospect of a good 
 voyage. I would have had the portrait done 
 when I received your parcel yesterday afternoon, 
 but there was not time, so I hope you will pardon 
 my not doing so. Some of the men at the manu- 
 factory have made me little presents, when 
 leaving them, altogether to the amount of more 
 than one pound — not in money, you know — 
 but little articles of their own making, includ- 
 ing a very beautiful ivory pocket tablet. 
 
 I hope you will enjoy health and unlocked for 
 prosperity till you hear from me again, and till 
 I hear from you, I have not much more time 
 now. If any of you should ever have to come
 
 LETTER EIGHTEEN 77 
 
 to London jou cannot do better than to get 
 lodging, if you can, at our liouse in Kirby-street, 
 but I will give you another address, in case 
 Irvines should be gone away : Mr. Stentake, 
 tailor. Red Lion Court, Charter House Lane. This 
 is where Hornblower lodges^ and they seem to be 
 very decent people — a sort by no means very 
 common in London. Kirby-street, Hatton Gar- 
 den, is a very respectable street, but London is 
 such that the next street to it is full of thieves, 
 Jews, and evil persons. The name of it is Field- 
 lane. You will remember this if you should 
 ever read ' Oliver Twist.' I must now conclude. 
 May God bless you, my dear, dear sister. You 
 will look out for the news from sea, to learn 
 whether we arrive safe. And should we never 
 meet again in this world, may we meet in a 
 better, and should you never hear from me 
 again, may God reward you for all you have 
 done for me. Farewell. 
 
 Yours most affectionately, 
 
 H. PARKES.
 
 LETTER NINETEEN. 
 
 LoNDONj 
 
 March 26th, 1839. 
 
 My Deae Fathek, 
 
 I thank you for the seeds, and for the sovereign 
 you sent me. I am afraid you must have put 
 yourself to great inconvenience to send me the 
 money. I hope I shall soon be able to return it 
 tenfold. 
 
 We shall soon be gone now. In two or three 
 hours we shall be on the river, and in a few days 
 we shall be on the open sea. I shall often read 
 your kind letter on the Atlantic and Indian 
 Oceans, and think of you and my poor beloved 
 mother. I again thank you most sincerely, and 
 must now wish you farewell. Farewell, beloved 
 parents, farewell. 
 
 Your affectionate son, 
 
 H. PARKES. 
 
 Give my love to my dear, dear mother, and 
 Clarinda's love to her and to all. 
 
 78
 
 LETTER TWENTY. 
 
 On Board the Strathjieldsaye, 
 Lying off Plymouth^ 
 
 3Iarch 31st, 1839. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 We came to anchor here this morning about 
 eight o'clock, and I lose no time in writing to 
 you. I had not time to take my last (dated 
 March 26th, the day we left London) to the 
 coach office. Left it with Hornblower. Hope 
 you have received it safe. The following is some 
 account of our voyage thus far. 
 
 Tuesday, March 26th. — Left London half-past 
 ten o'clock. Were but just in time for the 
 steamer to Gravesend about one o'clock. Went 
 in a small boat to the ship at the distance of about 
 one mile. The hole allotted to steerage pas- 
 sengers had a most miserable appearance at first. 
 
 79
 
 80 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 Wednesday, March 27th. — ^Lef t Gravesend this 
 morning between ten and eleven o'clock. Came 
 to anclior for the night in three or four hours, 
 about five miles below the Nore. All confusion 
 on board these two days, 
 
 Thursday, March 28th. — The anchor heaved 
 just before I got up. Went on deck about six 
 o'clock. A beautiful clear morning. Went 
 along very delightfully, with a good deal of sail 
 set. Past Margate just before one o'clock. The 
 sky now began to get cloudy. About two o'clock 
 a sudden squall of wind with a sharp storm of 
 hail caught us, and put us all in confusion and 
 fright. We were now opposite Ramsgate. The 
 weather continued rainy and bad the remainder 
 of the afternoon. Came to anchor in the Downs 
 about six o'clock, a little distance from shore, 
 opposite Deal. 
 
 Friday, March 29th. — Got the anchor up at 
 ten o'clock this morning. Went along merrily 
 with a good wind very near shore. The line of 
 coast from Deal to the white cliifs of Dover 
 presented many pleasant views. In sight of 
 Dover Castle about twelve o'clock. A delightful 
 view of Dover and Shakespeare's cliff. Saw the 
 coast of France on the opposite side of the 
 channel for about three hours. Very little sun
 
 LETTER TWENTY 81 
 
 to-day, but a good breeze. Went on deck soon 
 after seven o'clock at night. The round yellow 
 moon shone out from under a ridge of dark 
 clouds upon the wide, foaming waters deliciously. 
 Still going along rapidly ; only one other vessel 
 in sight. 
 
 Saturday, March 30th. — This morning at day- 
 light off the Isle of Wight. In sight of it for 
 about two hours. Been dashing along gallantly 
 all night. Myself very sick, obliged to lie down. 
 As I lay on the bare boards of my berth, with 
 my rolled-up bed under my head, in a hole only 
 just roomy enough to hold the number of its 
 inhabitants touching each other, I sought relief 
 from my miserable sensations by thinking of 
 those I had left behind, or anything that could 
 distract my attention from the scene around me. 
 I crept upon deck at 12 o'clock. The scene 
 there was truly magnificent. As we rose and 
 sank over the tumultuous waves of the Ensrlish 
 Channel I could not help repeating the beautiful 
 lines of Campbell : 
 
 ' Our march is on the mountain wave, 
 Our home is on the deep.' 
 
 Sunday, March 31st. — Came to anchor, after 
 tacking about all night, at Plymouth. Thei'e is 
 a Mr. Walker, from Newbold, Warwickshire, a
 
 82 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 cabin passenger, and some men whom he has 
 engaged in the steerage. There is also a Mr. 
 Badham, from Birmingham. And there are 
 many farm labourers from Sussex in the steer- 
 age — a very rude set. There are some Irishmen 
 and some Scotchmen. Some of the steerage 
 passengers, I believe, are going to leave us at 
 Plymouth, among them a young foppish Jew 
 from London, heartily tired of the journey 
 already. Clarinda is rather better, perhaps, than 
 when we left London. Our love to all. Hope 
 all are well. If you write, do so immediately. 
 Do try to send us two or three little things to 
 take with us. I do think I shall die on sea 
 biscuit and salt beef before I get to Sydney. 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 H. PARKES.
 
 LETTER TWENTY-ONE. 
 
 Plymouth Sound, 
 
 April 7th, 1839. 
 
 My Beloved Sister, 
 
 Mr. Marshall's clerk brought your letter on 
 board this morning. It rejoices Clarinda and 
 myself to learn from it that all of you are still 
 pretty well in health. I was very glad of the 
 money. Had three half-pence when I received 
 it, and no more. Am a great deal better than 
 when I wrote my last. Clarinda also is a great 
 deal better. 
 
 We fare very well, considering all things, on 
 board the Strathjieldsaye, but the steerage of 
 an emigrant ship is of necessity a most miser- 
 ably uncomfortable place to me. I am more 
 solitary and companionless than I ever was in all 
 my life in this stagnant crowd of human beings. 
 Some of them are of the most indecent and 
 brutish description. My hopes of ultimate 
 success are as good as ever, and it is worth 
 
 F 83
 
 84 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 somethins: to endure the disao-reeableness of the 
 next four months. 
 
 Now for a bit of description of our residence. 
 The large hold of the ship, where the goods gene- 
 rally are stored, is divided in about the middle 
 by a deal partition. The apartment towards 
 the forecastle, or front of the ship, is allotted to 
 the male steerage passengers; the other, towards 
 the cabins in the poop, or the back part of the 
 ship, to the females. There are two rows of 
 berths, one above the other, round each com- 
 partment. The berths are three feet by six feet, 
 just affording room for two persons to lie down. 
 They are separated from each other by a slight, 
 low deal board, about ten inches high, so that 
 when we are all in bed, our bodies, rising higher 
 than these boards which separate us, it seems as 
 if we were ranged side by side in one immense 
 bed all round the place. We sleep on straw 
 mattresses, with a double blanket and a rug. 
 We live at present on nothing but beef and 
 soup and biscuit, but there is plenty of that. 
 We are divided into messes — eight persons to 
 a mess. One of the eight acts as captain for 
 the rest for a week, and then another for 
 another week. The captain's job is to get the 
 provisions for the rest from the ship's steward.
 
 LETTER TWENTY-ONE 85 
 
 to see to its being cooked, to wash the dishes, 
 &c. I am captain this week. We have a black 
 ■cook. When we get out to sea where fresh beef 
 cannot be obtained, we shall be victualled ac- 
 cording to the scheme in Mr. Marshall's paper. 
 I think that will suit me a great deal better. 
 We have nearly all our passengers on board 
 now. A boat load of Irish 'real emeralds/ as 
 the surgeon called them, came last night. A 
 young* Jew from London forfeited his passage 
 money and left the ship the other day, heartily 
 tired of it. A man who was going out free also 
 ran away last Sunday morning, as soon as we 
 got here, and left all his clothes behind him. 
 We have a clei'gyman going out with us, who 
 came on board to-day. 
 
 They talk of our going direct to Sydney, and 
 not touching anywhere. We have live stock on 
 board for the use of the ship, A cow and calf, 
 24 pigs, 30 sheep, geese, fowls, etc. Not for us, 
 though, mind you. Our united love to father, 
 mother, and all of you. Give Clarinda's love to 
 her father and brother, if you ever see them. 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 H. PARKES. 
 
 This letter will go to London by Mr. Marshall's 
 agent.
 
 LETTER, TWENTY-TWO. 
 
 Sydney, 
 May Id, 1840. 
 
 My Deaf. Friends, 
 
 This is a duty I ought to have performed 
 months ago, and you will think harshly of me 
 for this neglect. I have no excuse to plead, save 
 that I was unwilling to sadden your hearts with 
 a tale of misery. I waited from day to day, and 
 from month to month, hoping to be able to give 
 a cheering account of this country, but it is a 
 sad one I write at last. I have been disappointed 
 in all my expectations of Australia, except as to 
 its wickedness ; for it is far more wicked than I 
 had conceived it possible for any place to be, or 
 than it is possible for me to describe to you in 
 England. We came to anchor in Sydney harbour 
 on the morning of the 25th July, 1839, my dear 
 
 86
 
 LETTER TWENTY-TWO 87 
 
 wife having become the mother of a little girl on 
 the 23rd, Avhen we were a few hours' sailing 
 clear of Bass's Strait. Our little blue-eyed 
 ocean child gets on very well, and is now, of 
 course, more than nine months old, I thank God 
 for this blessing. 
 
 " He moves in a mysterious way 
 His wonders to perform," 
 
 or this sweet one of ours could never have out- 
 lived the many ills which every day of its short 
 life hath brought. I had but two or three 
 shillings Avhen we got to Sydney, and the first 
 news that came on board was that the 4 lb. loaf 
 was selling at half-a-crown ! and everything pro- 
 portionately dear. There was no place for the 
 emigrants to go to till such time as they could 
 engage with masters, or otherwise provide for 
 themselves. When they left the ship they had 
 to do as best they could. Poor Clarinda in her 
 weak state had no one to do the least thing for 
 her, not even dress her baby, or make her bed; 
 and in a few days she was obliged to go on 
 shore, with her new-born infant in her arms, and 
 to walk a mile across the town of Sydney to the 
 miserable place I had been able to provide for 
 her as a home, which was a little low, dirty, 
 unfurnished room, without a fire place, at five
 
 88 AN EMIGBAXrS SOME LETTERS 
 
 shillings per week rent. When she sat down, 
 within these wretched walls, overwhelmed with 
 fatigue, on a box which I had brought with us 
 from the ship I had but threepence in the 
 world, and no employment. For more than two 
 weeks I kept beating about Sydney for work, 
 durinof which time I sold one thino^ and another 
 from our little stock for support. At length, 
 being completely starved out, I engaged as a 
 common labourer with Sir John Jamison, Kt., 
 M.C., to go about thirty-six miles up the country. 
 Sir John agreed to give me £25 for the year, 
 with a ration and half of food. This amounted 
 to weekly : — 
 
 beef — sometimes unfit to eat. 
 rice — of the worst imaginable quality, 
 flour — half made up of ground rice, 
 sugar — good-tasted brown, 
 tea — inferior. 
 
 soap — not enough to wash our hands. 
 2 figs of tobacco — useless to me. 
 
 This was what we had to live upon, and not a 
 leaf of a vegetable or a drop of milk beyond this. 
 For the first four months we had no other bed 
 than a sheet of bark off a box tree, and an old 
 door, laid on two cross pieces of wood, covered 
 over with a few articles of clothing. The hut 
 appointed for us to live in was a very poor one. 
 
 10.^ 
 
 lbs, 
 
 lOi 
 
 lbs, 
 
 61 
 
 lbs. 
 
 2 
 
 lbs. 
 
 X 
 
 4 
 
 lb. 
 
 i 
 
 lb.
 
 LETTER TWENTY-TWO 89 
 
 The Tnorning sunsliine, the noontide sliower, and 
 the white moonlight of midnight, gushed in upon 
 us alike. You will, perhaps, think had you been 
 with us, you would have had a few vegetables at 
 any rate, for you would have made a bit of 
 garden, and cultivated them for yourselves ; but 
 you would have done no such thing ! The slave- 
 masters of New South Wales require their ser- 
 vants to work for them from sunrise till sunset, 
 and will not allow them to have gardens, lest 
 they should steal a half-hour's time to work in 
 them. I should mention that our boxes, coming 
 up from Sydney on Sir John's dray, were broken 
 open, and almost everything worth carrying 
 away was stolen. I made this at first a very 
 grave complaint, but only got laughed at for my 
 pains, and told that was nothing. During the 
 time I was at Sir John's, I was employed mostly 
 in a vineyard consisting of sixteen acres of land. 
 I was there during the vintage season, and left 
 just as we had done wine-making in the middle 
 of last February, having been in his service six 
 months. This estate of Sir John's is named 
 ' Regentville,' and is situated about three miles 
 from the small town of Penrith, on the bank of 
 the Nepean River, and about the same distance 
 from the first rauffe of the Blue Mountains. I
 
 90 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 have been in Sydney now better than two 
 months, part of which time I worked in a large 
 ironmongery store in George-street, which was 
 founded by Macdonald, who now resides, I 
 believe, at Birmingham. I am at the present 
 time at work for Messrs. Russell Bros., engineers 
 and brassfounders, Queen's Place, George-street. 
 I get £ve shillings per day, finishing brass work ; 
 good brassfounders get 7s. Od. and 8s. a day, I 
 think I could get plenty of light turning to do, 
 and a good price for it, if I had a lathe, which I 
 will try to get before long. I am very unsettled 
 at present on account of ill-health. This brass 
 business does not suit me at all — have not been 
 able to do any work for the last week. I think 
 I shall be obliged to go into the country again. 
 As soon as I get settled I will write and arrange 
 with you how you may forward a few things 
 which I should like to get from England as soon 
 as I can remit the money. In the meantime, be 
 pleased to write immediately, and let us know 
 how all our dear friends have fared since we left 
 home, I hope well. Address, Mr. Henry Parkes, 
 ivory turner, at the General Post Ofiice, Sydney, 
 New South Wales. You must pay the land 
 postage, or the letters w411 not be sent with the 
 mails on board ship. Send me some newspapers.
 
 LETTER TWENTY-TWO 91 
 
 and write on the wrappers of them ' newspaper 
 only.' Send me all the news you can. I have 
 seen but one person since I have been in this 
 colony, whom I had any knowledge of in England; 
 
 that was , who was transported about 
 
 two years ago, from Moseley-street. I saw him 
 once — met him in Sydney — he was then stay- 
 ing in the hands of Government at the new 
 prison at Woolloomooloo. For the encourage- 
 ment of any at home who think of emigrating, I 
 ought to add that I have not seen one single 
 individual who came out with me in the 8trath- 
 fieldsaye but most heartily wishes himself back 
 at home. Mr. Isaac Aaron, who lived in Deritend, 
 is practising in this colony as a surgeon, at Ray- 
 mond Terrace, on tlie River Hunter. 
 With my heart's prayers for you all, 
 
 I remain, 
 
 H. PARKES. 
 
 P.S. — Wages in Sydney at the present time 
 are about as follow-^o-ood workmen : — 
 
 per week. 
 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Smiths" 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 to 2 10 
 
 
 
 Engineers ... 
 
 2 2 
 
 
 
 „ 3 
 
 
 
 Carpenters ... 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 „ 2 10 
 
 
 
 Masons 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 „ 2 S 
 
 
 
 Compositors 
 
 2 10 
 
 
 
 „ :i 
 

 
 92 AN EMIGRANTS ROME LETTERS 
 
 £ s. d. a s. d. 
 
 Turners ... 1 10 to 1 16 per week. 
 
 House painters 1 16 ,, 2 8 ,, 
 
 Other mechanics about the same. 
 
 Labourers ... 1 4 ,, 1 10 „ 
 
 You miglit get as good a house in Birmingliam 
 for 2s. 6d. per week when I left as you can get 
 in Sydney for 15s. per week. 
 
 Clarinda sends her love and best wishes to 
 her dear parents, with which I unite my own. 
 Tell my own dear father and mother, if — as I 
 trust — they are both alive, that they are seldom 
 absent from my thoughts. Give my love to my 
 dear nephews Thomas and William. Tell James 
 I am not sorry he did not come out here with 
 us, though I think he might have done as well 
 as most. I will give you some general account 
 of this country in my next, which you may 
 expect in a month or two after the receipt of 
 this, and I hope my next account of my own 
 progress will be more satisfactory. Tell John 
 Yarney I would advise him by no means to come 
 to this colony. Tell him to write. 
 
 Note. — John Varney, my mother's brother, afterwards 
 went to Canada. — A. T. P.
 
 LETTER TWENTY-TEEEE. 
 
 Sydney, 
 September 22nd, 1840. 
 
 My Dear Sister, — 
 
 My letter of 1st May gave you but a gloomy 
 account of Australia. I have some tiling to say 
 now a little more cheering, though I could not 
 at present muster courage to persuade any of 
 my friends in England to think of emigrating. 
 
 I am noAV in a situation which promises not 
 only to provide me comfortable bread, but to 
 enable me to save a little money. You have 
 doubtless heard of such gentlemen as Custom 
 House oflficers, whose business it is to catch 
 smugglers, seize contraband goods, etc. Your 
 humble servant is now one of these. I spend 
 most of my time on board ships, where I have 
 a good deal of leisure to write poetry — I have
 
 94 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 enough already to fill a book, most of which has 
 been published in a Sydney newspaper. But I 
 intend to apply some of this waste time to a 
 better purpose — that of writing a series of letters 
 to you and other dear friends in England, 
 descriptive of this country. 
 
 In the meantime, send me word how all is 
 going on at home. I hope my dear father is in 
 good health, and comfortable. My poor afflicted 
 mother, I have a sad presentiment, must be gone 
 for ever. If God has spared her, tell her that 
 we poor exiles in Australia are comparatively 
 happy, though we cling to the hope of returning 
 to Old England. Give my dear Avife's love to 
 her father, and tell him that she weeps at the 
 mention of his name. Tell him that we have 
 now another Clarinda, a little friendless, blue- 
 eyed infant, that looks up in his daughter's face 
 and lisps ' mamma.' She was born amidst the 
 rage of the turbulent sea, where no one smiled 
 upon her birth ; but He who holds the ocean in 
 the hollow of His hand was with us on the 
 waters. Kemember us to all, Maria, Eliza, John, 
 James, George, and our nephews, Thomas and 
 William. 
 
 God bless you all. Farewell. Pa}'- the land 
 postage in England or the letters, I believe, will
 
 LETTER TWENTY-THREE 95 
 
 not be forwarded. Address, Mr. Henry F. Parkes, 
 care of H.M. Customs, Sydney, N.S.W. 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 HENRY F. PARKES. 
 
 Note. — I was much surprised to find that this and tlie 
 two following letters were signed ' Henry F. Parkes,' as I 
 never heard my father say he had another name, nor does 
 he appear to have so signed his name before or since. I 
 suppose he thought of adopting the name of ' Faulconbridge,' 
 his mother's maiden name. — A. T. P.
 
 LETTER TWENTY-FOUR. 
 
 Sydney, 
 May 24th, 1841. 
 
 My Deak Sistee, 
 
 On tlie 16tli of last montli I received your 
 letter, dated November 17tli, 1840, and I cannot 
 tell you tlie happiness it afforded me to know 
 that my mother was still living to hear from her 
 undutiful son, for I can scarcely forgive myself 
 for not having written sooner, though I then 
 had but an ill account to write. I expected to 
 hear of misery and affliction from what I am 
 able to learn here of the state of things at home, 
 and therefore was not surprised at my father 
 being so unfortunate, but not less sorry. I have 
 not received any newspapers, and I hope you 
 will not be at the trouble to send any more 
 unless you can send them by some safer means 
 
 96
 
 LETTER TWENTY-FOUR 97 
 
 than by post, as it appears that some party or 
 other in the post office department makes it a 
 common practice to detain all the English papers 
 he can. It is my pleasing dnty to tell you now 
 that I have a much happier prospect before me 
 than I had when I wrote to you this time last 
 year, or than I ever had in my life. In my letter 
 of May, 1840, my conscience constrained me to 
 state the truth, however unwillingly. I and my 
 dear and virtuous wife were then enduring the 
 utmost poverty, and had been in that state ever 
 since our arrival in the colony, I had then to 
 associate, in my endeavours to obtain a livelihood, 
 with the most debased and servile characters to 
 be found in society. That confession of my 
 misfortunes, I had reason to believe, would be 
 highly gratifying to some at home, however they 
 might attempt to disguise it ; but there were 
 others at home who had a right to know the 
 truth, and I told you m}^ misery and disappoint- 
 ment, heedless of the sneer of gratified male- 
 volence. It would be ungrateful in me to say 
 that I have met with no friends in Australia. 
 When I had nothing to eat, and no means of 
 getting it in the wild bush, a convict, who 
 evidently knew the circumstance, brought me a 
 share of his rations. On another occasion, when
 
 98 ^A^ EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 I had to travel through the bush in the middle 
 of the night, a poor prisoner got up from his 
 bed to carry my bagg-age, out of pure respect. 
 But think not that I met with respect and kind- 
 ness only among this class of my fellow-creatures. 
 One of the most influential men in the colony, a 
 member of the Legislative Council, and a 
 descendant from one of the most illustrious 
 families in England, has not thought me 
 undeserving his kindness, and I have lately sat 
 down to table with some of the most respectable 
 merchants in Sydney. I have now a more com- 
 fortable home than it was ever my lot to possess 
 in England. There is one species of wretched- 
 ness which I am now entirely free from — that 
 of being in debt with no means of paying. 
 Companions I have none beyond my Avife and 
 child, but I have plenty of books to amuse my- 
 self, and a deal of leisure time in which to I'ead 
 them. Upon the whole, I am getting reconciled 
 to the country, though my home-sick heart still 
 very frequently pines for its native land. Poor 
 Clarinda spends a very solitary life, as my 
 situation requires me to be absent from her the 
 greater part of my time ; still, the thought that 
 our native land could not yield us bread recon- 
 ciles her to the absence of friends, and our dear
 
 LETTER TWENTY-FOUE 99 
 
 little girl, who can now just totter about from 
 chair to chair, and repeat many little words very 
 sweetly — our dear little blue-eyed ocean child is 
 ever with her, to soothe her in her lonely hours. 
 You ask me for the child's name. It is 
 ' Clarinda Sarah.' She is now a year and ten 
 months old, and, excepting a slight cold, is in a 
 happy state of health. If she is at any time 
 poorly, she fights most stoutly against taking 
 physic, and says to her mother : " Father will 
 beat you." In your next letter be pleased to let 
 me know how all of you are getting on, par- 
 ticularly my father and mother (that I may 
 determine in what way I may best assist them). 
 It is my intention to remit some money home as 
 soon as possible. It is probable that I shall 
 return to London in three or four years, but I 
 shall be sure not to stay in England, nor do I 
 think I shall settle in Sydney. I have promised 
 myself a voyage to Java before returning to 
 Europe, which I shall probably make in the 
 latter part of next year. You will think I am 
 speaking extravagantly, but do not be surprised 
 to receive a letter from me, dated from Manilla, 
 or Sourabaya, or Batavia, or even Calcutta, for 
 I am determined upon a trip to the East. Should 
 you have any opportunity of sending to me
 
 100 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 otherwise tlian by post, send me all the old 
 Birmingham newspapers which you can muster, 
 also, if you can get them, the Weekly Dispatch, 
 Tail's Magazine, and other publications of a 
 late date. The only way in which you can 
 send anything with safety is to make it into a small 
 parcel, and send it by some particular ship, writing 
 me the ship's name by post, but minding that the 
 letterdoes not come in the same ship; tliatis, write 
 early enough for 3'our letter to come by some 
 ship that sails before the one which is to bring 
 the parcel. Your living so far from any seaport 
 is an obstacle, but you can write to the agent of 
 the ship you see advertised in London or Liver- 
 pool. The Times newspaper is the best for 
 shipping advertisements. I am intimately ac- 
 quainted with Mr. Chapman, chief officer of the 
 Robert Neivton, to whose care I entrust this 
 small parcel. Should he be coming out here 
 again, I will get him to write to you before sail- 
 ing, so that anything you may wish to send may 
 be forwarded to him to bring out to me. The 
 Robert Newton will sail from Sydney in about 
 three weeks from the date of this. In all pro- 
 bability she will arrive in England about Sep- 
 tember. I am also well acquainted with Capt. 
 Hurry of the barque Beatrice, now loading at
 
 LETTER TWENTY-FOUR 101 
 
 Sydney for London. By this vessel I will send 
 to you. Be sure and write to me frequently. 
 Should you see Mr. John Varney^ junior^ ask 
 him to write to me. He is a young man whom 
 I should much respect, even if he was not my 
 wife's only brother. Tell him that I and his 
 dear sister were much grieved to hear of the 
 loss of his children, and much rejoiced to know 
 that he was prospering in business, for he richly 
 deserves to prosper. If my father-in-law, Mr. 
 R. Varney, has it in his power to do anything 
 for his children, I hope he will do all he can for 
 John, for Clarinda will never want anything 
 from him. In your letter you told me that 
 Clarinda' s father had sent a message by Dr. 
 Ross. Clarinda accordingly waited on that 
 gentleman the following Sunday, at the Inde- 
 pendent Chapel in Pitt-street, and he stated 
 that he had received no message whatever. Tell 
 Mr. Varney from me not to trifle with our feel- 
 ings again, through the agency of Dr. Ross or 
 Dr. anybody else. If he has anything to say to 
 us let him write, if there be pens and ink in 
 Birmingham. In your next letter let me know 
 if my father has any notion of being a farmer 
 again, if he would make up his mind to leave his 
 native country for ever, if he would like to end
 
 102 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 his days with us in Australia. He need not fear 
 the hardships which we had to endure coming 
 here, as we did, entire strangers. 
 
 Give our love to my brothers and sisters, with 
 my best wishes for their future happiness. The 
 trifles I send with this are hardly worth your 
 accepting, ' But yet reject them not as such ! ' 
 You wish to have some account of our passage 
 out from England, which I will endeavour to 
 furnish you in one of my next letters. In the 
 meantime, 
 
 I remain. 
 
 Yours affectionatelv; 
 
 H. PARKES. 
 
 Address, Mr. Henry F. Parkes, ofl3.cer of H.M. 
 Customs, in care of Mr. W. Magee, bookseller 
 and stationer, Pitt-street North, Sydney, N.S.W.
 
 LETTER TWE NTT-FIVE, 
 
 Sydney, 
 May 21, 1841. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 I have just received from the post oiEce your 
 letter dated December 6tli, 1840, together with 
 the five newspapers (for which I am much ob- 
 liged). Yesterday I delivered into the care of 
 Mr. Chapman, chief officer of the brig Robert 
 Newton, a small package containing Sydney 
 newspapers, a few shells, and an unsealed letter 
 with a little of ours and baby's hair. The Robert 
 Newton will go to sea next week, bound direct 
 to London. She will probably arrive about 
 October. My friend Mr Chapman will forward 
 the parcel to jon as soon as he gets to London. 
 He may pass through Birmingliam on his way to 
 his home in Yorkshire. If so he will call upon
 
 104 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 you. I wrote a second letter to you last October. 
 Received your answer to my first, dated Novem- 
 ber 17tli, on the 16tli of last month. I wrote to 
 Mr. J. Varney, March 23, 1841. Will write to 
 Mr. W. Hornblower in a week or two. In my 
 letter by the Robert Newton I tell you not to send 
 any more newspapers by post, as I did not receive 
 your first. As I have been more fortunate with 
 these I would revoke that request. 
 
 The letter I receive to-day gives me much 
 happiness. I rejoice to think that things do 
 not appear to change for the worse at home, 
 though I am afraid they get but little better. 
 I scarcely know what feeling in me is strongest 
 when I read your kind proposal to send us things 
 from England : gratitude for or admiration of 
 your affectionate generosity. 
 
 You wish for some account of the passage out 
 from England. You shall have it in a few words. 
 After gazing on the Land's End of Cornwall as it 
 rapidly lessened away from our view on the 8th 
 of April, 1839, we never saw land again, with 
 the exception of the rugged cliffs of the Island 
 of St. Antonia (the most western of the Verde 
 Islands, off the cape of that name, on the coast 
 of Africa), till we arrived on the opposite side 
 of the world. We were sailing with a fair breeze.
 
 LETTER TWENTY-FIVE 105 
 
 at eiglit or ten knots^ when we passed Antonia ; 
 therefore it was not in sight more than three or 
 four hours. We saw neither human beings beast, 
 bird, nor tree upon it ; nothing but the bare per- 
 pendicular rocks. On the first of June we were 
 caught in a tremendous gale of wind, which 
 increased during the night to a complete hurri- 
 cane. For two days and nights we were either 
 lying to or drifting before the tempest, with no 
 other stitch of canvas than our close-reefed mizzen- 
 top-sail ; during which time the winds blew so 
 terribly that we expected every minute to see 
 the masts torn out of the ship, and heavy seas 
 kept continually sweeping the deck. About 
 the fourth evening after the storm abated we 
 sighted a vessel in a dismasted condition. We 
 saw lights of distress during the first part of the 
 night, but on the following morning the horizon 
 of the waters was without a speck. It would 
 seem she went down in the night. We after- 
 wards spoke a vessel from Newcastle, bound to 
 India, which told us of the Red Rove?' being a 
 total wreck on the Island of St. Jago. The Red 
 Rover sailed out of Plymouth Sound while we 
 were lying there, bound to Sydney. On 
 the 20th July we made King's Island, at the 
 entrance of Bass's Strait, having had cold
 
 106 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 and rough weather all the way from the 
 latitude of the Cape of Good Hope. We 
 did not get through Bass's Straits till the 
 22nd. On the 23rd we saw the mainland. The 
 night of the 22nd was very rough, the ship 
 rolling a great deal, and on that night our little 
 one was born. The sun rose from the land on 
 the 24th to take possession of an almost cloudless 
 sky. The line of coast continued to lengthen 
 till it stretched either Avay as far as the eye could 
 reach in the bland and beautiful sunlight. The 
 following night we were tacking about in sight 
 of the lighthouse erected on the south head of 
 Port Jackson. On the morning of the 25th, 
 about 8 o'clock, we entered inside the heads, and 
 in two hours afterwards anchored off Dawes' 
 Battery, completing the passage in a little more 
 than a hundred days. 
 
 When within the tropics we had the most 
 delightful weather imaginable. The water was 
 so smooth that the ship glided along almost 
 without any perceptible motion. We saw whole 
 fleets of nautilus floating past us every day, and 
 sometimes the expanse of sea would be alive 
 with shoals of porpoises, and ever and anon a 
 little company of fl^nng fish would spring up 
 into the sun and drop again at a short distance
 
 LETTER TWENTY-FIVE 107 
 
 into the bright and level waters. During a short 
 calm on the line we counted one morning seven- 
 teen other vessels, none of them near us. From 
 about the Cape of Good Hope to our journey's 
 end we were surrounded every day by albatross 
 and other sea birds. This is all ! A poor account 
 truly, but such as it is you must be pleased to be 
 satisfied with it, for I can remember nothing to 
 make me wish to think of the subject again. I 
 will send you all the information concerning 
 Australia which I think worth your attention in 
 future letters, and I will write much more fre- 
 quently. I will also often send some news- 
 papers. I send about fifty by the Robert Newton. 
 I see many London papers, but very seldom 
 country papers. I have dined several times 
 latety on board ship with a young gentleman 
 from Birmingham, a son of Mr. Price, silver- 
 smith, at the bottom of Bull-street. It is not 
 often I meet with anyone from that part of the 
 country. 
 
 When you write after receiving this be pleased 
 to let us know how Thomas is getting on in his 
 education. I hope you will be sure to let him 
 obtain a competent knowledge of arithmetic and 
 the substantial branches of learning, to enable 
 him to fill a respectable mercantile situation, in
 
 108 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 case it sliould be convenient foi- him to seek such 
 employment. I hope he is a good boy and kind 
 and aifectionate to you all. And may He who 
 is the Father of the Fatherless bless and prosper 
 him in all things. I hope my brothers are 
 comfortable and happy. Give my love to both 
 of them. Tell my dear father and mother that 
 the world's extension intervening shall not keep 
 me from seeing them again if G-od spares us but 
 two or three years longer. I often wish my 
 father was here with me now, that I could 
 provide for him in comfort, for I feel so lonely 
 in this land of strangers. Yet there is some- 
 thing so heart-sickening in one's being an exile, 
 that I am afraid to hold out encouragement to 
 anyone to leave their native land. In case any 
 of you should feel inclined to come out here, 
 write me word to that effect as early as possible. 
 I will give you a particular account of what 
 could be done here in a future letter, and that 
 of an early date. 
 
 I hope you will not be at the expense of 
 sending anything for me as intimated in your 
 kind letter, as neither of us now is in need of 
 such in the shape of clothing. With respect to 
 a lathe, I shall buy one in the colony. Any 
 little thing you may wish to send for little
 
 LETTER TWENTY. FIVE 109 
 
 Clarinda Sarah, I need not tell you, will be 
 prized as coming from her aunts in Old England. 
 When Mr. Chapman is in London you can 
 entrust any parcel to him, and he will either get 
 some seafaring gentleman who may be coming 
 out here to bring it to me, or ship it in a regular 
 manner, paying the freight in London, and 
 getting a bill of lading signed for it. There are 
 several little things which I want to get from 
 home. I will enumerate them when I send the 
 money to procure them. I should like very well 
 to have the dog, but do not send him till you see 
 whether I am likely soon to return. I am 
 extremely glad to hear that Mr. J. Varney is 
 getting on well in business. Send me word 
 what John Hornblower is doing, if you can learn 
 without giving yourself much trouble. Write 
 to me as frequently as you can. Clarinda sends 
 her love to all her friends, to which I add my 
 own, sincerely wishing them every earthly 
 happiness and prosperity; but ask Mr. Varney 
 not to send any more messages, as he is likely to 
 be understood by writing much better. In an 
 early letter I will let you know my views as to 
 the future. I am now very anxious about getting 
 money, not being at all content to come here for 
 no purpose. I must now bid you ' farewell '
 
 no AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 for the present. With my dear wife's love to 
 my father and mother, and to you all, in which I 
 most heartily unite. 
 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 HENRY F. PARKES. 
 
 Note. — The ' Thomas ' so often mentioned in these letters 
 was the son of my father's eldest brother, left fatherless 
 and'motherless at an early age, and reared by my aunts. 
 
 A. T. P.
 
 LETTER TWENTY-SIX. 
 
 Sydney, 
 August 8th, 1841. 
 
 My Dear Sister, — 
 
 I received yesterday your letter dated 
 February 22nd, together Avitk one from Mr. 
 R. Varney, making the third and fourth since I 
 left England. This will make the sixth letter I 
 have written to you. I wrote Mr. J. Varney last 
 March, and to Mr. W. Hornblower June 3rd. A 
 letter to my father I shall post with this. I have 
 received nine newspapers in all. The papers 
 you sent with this last letter were not likely to 
 reach me, as it appears they came by a ship 
 bound to Port Phillip, the overland mail bringing 
 the letters on to Sydney, a distance of six 
 hundred miles. Our dear little girl has been at 
 death's door since my last, at which time she
 
 112 AN EMIGRANT S HOME LETTERS 
 
 was not well, though I did not write to that 
 effect, thinking she would soon get better. I am 
 happy to inform you now that she is regaining 
 her health very fast, so fast that I have included 
 her in ' all very well ' to my father, but she is 
 not able to walk at present. We have been able 
 to obtain medical aid, with which Clarinda was 
 quite satisfied, and the dear little sufferer has 
 wanted no comfort. I was sorry to hear of the 
 death of my brother's wife, but hope he will be 
 comforted. Was much rejoiced to hear that my 
 mother's health was continuing so good. I hope 
 you will not apprentice our nephew for some 
 twelve months to come, by which time I should 
 be able to advise what best to do with him (if 
 you think my advice worth having). In the 
 meantime I think he should be employed. 
 Suppose you got him into a printing office for a 
 short time. He would be attaining a knowledge 
 of printing as a business and of book-making 
 altogether, which would foster his taste for 
 reading at the same time, as he would be get- 
 ting a little money. (Nothing like getting money ; 
 nothing can be done Avithout it. I know the 
 value of money now ! Money ! money ! money ! 
 is my watchword in future !) But do not neglect 
 his education. Attend especially to that branch
 
 LETTER TWENTY- SIX 113 
 
 whicH may fit liim for business. On no account 
 suffer him to neglect arithmetic. Drawing is 
 very well in its place — a very beautiful acquisition, 
 but it must not become a mere childish passion, 
 to the subversion of that which may make him a 
 gentleman, an intelligent and useful member of 
 society. Drawing will be of no use to him in 
 the merchant's counting house, and I do not 
 think Birmingham the place for his future 
 existence. What is his age ? Does he read 
 much, and what kind of books ? Give my love 
 to him, and tell him to be a good fellow — to 
 begin to be a man ! 
 
 I have little more to say at present, and as 
 little time. I am quite happy now in Australia, 
 and I am sure this will add to your happiness. 
 I have got together a good many books, with 
 other comforts, since I have been here, among 
 which are the following : ' Plutarch's Lives,' 
 complete ; Smith's ' Wealth of Nations,' com- 
 plete ; Dr. Lang's 'History of Australia;' 
 ' Sturt's Expeditions into Australia ; ' ' Blair's 
 Lectures ; ' ' Poetical Works of James Mont- 
 gomery,' complete in three vols. ; ' Goldsmith's 
 Works,' complete in four vols. ; * The Works 
 of Shakespeare,' complete ; ' The Spectator,' 
 complete ; ' Sir William Jones' Letters ; ' and
 
 114 AN EMIORA NT S HOME LETTERS 
 
 many more. You will see I have some reading 
 now under my own roof, though I was obliged to 
 sell every book I had when I first arrived to buy 
 bread. There is a great fall in the price of this 
 article lately. The 4 lbs. loaf is now only eight- 
 pence. There is some difference between this 
 and 2s. 6d., and almost everything in Sydney 
 except rent is very reasonable. I bought a 
 carpenter's hand-saw from a broker's shop, quite 
 new, and as good as the one you sent me in 
 London, for 4s. What do you think of this ? 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 H. PARKES.
 
 LETTER TWENTY-SEVEN. 
 
 Sydney, 
 September 15th, 1841. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 You will perceive by a newspaper of to-day's 
 date, which I shall post with this, that hundreds 
 of emigrants are at the present time starving 
 in the streets of Sydney, so great has been the 
 over-supply of labour here since my last. Of 
 this deplorable fact I could send you other and 
 stronger proof had I leisure to do so, but I write 
 this away from home, not deeming it right to 
 delay a moment in letting you know. A week 
 ago there were eight vessels riding at anchor in 
 the harbour, all crowded with emigrants ! And 
 though many of them have now been engaged to 
 go into the interior, I am afraid great numbers 
 will not be able to obtain employment. By the
 
 116 AN EMIGRANTa HOME LETTERS 
 
 emigration regulations they are only allowed to 
 remain on board their respective vessels ten days 
 after their arrival in Port Jackson, and at the 
 expiration of that time they are invariably turned 
 adrift to provide for themselves in the way they 
 best can. If they cannot get employment, and 
 have no money, of course they must starve ! I 
 saw a case in the newspapers last week of a 
 young woman who was turned out of one of these 
 emigrant ships when the ten days were up, and 
 was found by a policeman sitting on the Queen's 
 Wharf, and taken to the watchhouse. The next 
 morning she was brought before the magistrate, 
 charged with being drunk ; and though she stated 
 that it was f aintness, and that she was meditating 
 suicide when the policeman came to her, yet she 
 was sentenced, on the oath of the policeman, to 
 sit one hour in the stocks ! What encourage- 
 ment for persons to come to Australia ! 
 
 I must now conclude, hoping that you are all 
 in the enjoyment of health. Our little Clara is 
 getting quite well again. Clarinda and myself 
 are quite well. The merchants of Sydney are all 
 in a state of bankruptcy. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 H. PARKES.
 
 LETTER TWENTY-EIGHT. 
 
 Sydney, 
 23rd January, 1842. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 Your letter dated Gtli June, 1841, came to 
 hand this day, making the fourth I have received 
 from you, with one from Mr. R. Varney. 
 I must also have received the greater part of 
 the newspapers, though I cannot state how many. 
 This will make the tenth or eleventh letter to 
 you, with one each to Mr. J. Varney and Mr. W. 
 Hornblower, and the best part of a hundred 
 newspapers. I write this on ship-board, or I 
 would state the exact number, having an account 
 at home. I need not tell you how I am dis- 
 tressed to hear of dear father suffering so much 
 from bad health, and of all of you being still 
 unfortunate in that way. I hope, however, that 
 
 117
 
 118 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 all are now safely restored to that greatest of 
 earthly blessings, and my sorrow is somewhat 
 decreased by learning our beloved mother is so 
 much better than I dared to allow myself to 
 hope. I am happy to inform you that I and my 
 Clarinda and our Clarinda Sally are all in the 
 enjoyment of excellent health. Our little light- 
 hearted ' Ninna/ as we call her, runs about and 
 chatters at a fine rate. xVnd what do you think 
 her home-sick mother has taught her ? Some- 
 times when I go home, she runs to me with : 
 "Father, take us in a big ship to see grand- 
 fathers and aunties in England, do, father ! " In 
 a parcel which I sent home last June I enclosed 
 a small lock of her hair. I will, perhaps, send 
 you her portrait in a future one. You tell me 
 Tom is reading Cunningham's ' New South 
 Wales;' I am glad to hear it. Cunningham, I 
 believe, gives an excellent account of the colony, 
 but I never read him myself. I hope Tom is 
 getting on in his education, ■particularly in 
 arithmetic, which will be the chief thing he will 
 have to depend upon in his future life — for a 
 respectable position in society. I am heartily 
 glad to hear that Mr. J. Varney is getting on so 
 well in business. My prayers will be for his 
 prosperity, for I believe him an excellent man.
 
 LETTER TWENTY-EIGHT 119 
 
 and must continue in this belief wliicli makes me 
 happy, though he may deem me worthless. Give 
 my love to him — should you see him — also to his 
 father. Tell Mr. R. Varney that his daughter is 
 comfortable, and as happy as a virtuous woman 
 in her situation can be. Tell him it is time any 
 enmity he may feel towards me should cease, 
 though in some measure he may have had cause 
 for it. The fact of our being separated to the 
 opposite extreme of the earth should, I think, 
 help to make us friends. I do not believe my 
 follies in earlier life were so great as my mis- 
 fortunes. I entered the world with as little 
 experience and as many difficulties as ever 
 young man had for his portion. I did not 
 succeed; what wonder! My native land seemed 
 too unfriendly for me to live in — I loved it — you 
 know how well I loved my country ; yet I tore 
 myself away to seek for ' leave to toil' in a foreign 
 land. I had to encounter a new kind of suffer- 
 ing, but not a Avorse, though sufficiently ample 
 to punish me for my former errors. 
 
 I am now more happily situated, but there is 
 much bitterness at best in the lot of an exile. 
 And Clarinda and I have little to ameliorate the 
 exile's lot j we have neither wealth nor friends, 
 and the very means of comfort afforded us is in
 
 120 AN EMIGRA^rS HOME LETTERS 
 
 itself a source of discomfort, for it separates us, 
 who have none other for the weary heart to lean 
 upon. Still we have much to be thankful for, 
 and I trust we are truly thankful. And, God 
 willing, the time shall come when all who know 
 us at Birmingham shall acknowledge that we are 
 honourable. In the meantime let us be content. 
 Accept for yourself, my dearest sister, my grate- 
 ful acknowledgments for all your past kindness. 
 You have been to me a sister, affectionate with 
 the watchful affection of a mother. I cannot 
 remember a moment of life when you did not 
 smile upon me with gentleness and love. It was 
 you who did nurse me in my earliest sickness, 
 and you whose voice of comfort came last to me 
 in my native land. When affliction smote my 
 mother in earlier years you caught the maternal 
 glow of her love, and supplied her place. You 
 taught me first to pray, and my best prayers 
 shall be offered up for you. And I have other 
 sisters ; may God be most kind to them ! Give 
 my love to my brothers. If we never meet again 
 may their years be many and their share of 
 happiness large. That they may go down to the 
 grave in honour and peace will ever be his prayer 
 who is far away. 
 
 I thank you sincerely for the sweet words of
 
 LETTER TWENTY.EIGHT 121 
 
 consolation and advice wliicli you send me over 
 the wide, wide sea. You also have my thanks 
 for the news you send me about old Brummagen. 
 You have a poet and a poetess, have you ? 
 You do not seem to be aware that the greatest 
 poetical personage of Birmingham is now living 
 with us at the Antipodes. The late Miss 
 Twamley, now Mrs. Meredith, is a resident in 
 Australia. And what do you think of my setting 
 up poet? I am positively preparing for the 
 press a volume of verses ; have already sub- 
 scribers for 100 copies, including some of the 
 greatest names in New South Wales, as by-and- 
 by you will see. Among your news you tell 
 me that you have a nunnery in Birmingham. 
 Why, I declare the old place is getting quite 
 romantic ! You must take care of Maria and 
 Eliza, lest they take the veil. I should 
 not like to see them nuns. But, joking apart, 
 do not be alarmed at a convent of sisters of 
 mercy. They will not (think as you please) 
 hurt Protestantism. You must let me know how 
 the Chartists are getting on, and if you should 
 see anything in the papers respecting William 
 Lovett, who was imprisoned with John Collins in 
 Warwick gaol, be pleased to send me the paper 
 containing it. I am very desirous to know as
 
 122 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 rauch as I can about him. He appears to me to 
 be one of the best men in England. I must now 
 endeavour to collect you a little news — colonial 
 news. 
 
 The commercial state of Sydney is at the 
 present time^ and has been for the last twelve 
 months, as gloomy as can well be conceived. 
 The market is overstocked with almost every 
 commodity. Most kinds of British goods may 
 be purchased here as cheap as, or cheaper than, 
 in England. Failures to enormous amounts 
 occur continually. There is scarcely a mercan- 
 tile house in Sydney which a man could say 
 with safety was solvent a year ago, which is not 
 now undermined by these repeated crashes of 
 bankruptcy. At present we have also too 
 much labour in Sydney, gi'eat numbers of work- 
 men, mechanics, and labourers, ' old hands in 
 the colony ' — unemployed. The ncAV-comers fare 
 worse, of course — that is, those who stay in the 
 town. In the interior there is still employment. 
 Wages are much lower than they were a few 
 months ago. You will feel surprised that in 
 this state of things there should be such a cry 
 raised in the colony for increased immigration, 
 not only from Great Britain and the continent 
 of Europe, but from India and China. The fact
 
 LETTER TWENTY-EIGHT 123 
 
 iSj the parties who are foremost in the endeavour 
 to inundate us Avith Avorkers look only to the 
 depreciation of labour as the sure result. They 
 have been accustomed to having the convict's 
 toil for nothing, and they cannot bring their 
 minds to paying for that of the free man. Hence 
 they would fain have the poor coolie from India, 
 bound to them for a number of years — a slave 
 in everything but in name. You will be kind 
 enough to excuse my rambling and blundering 
 manner of writing. I have much to say but have 
 not time to think about it just now. I propose 
 writing you descriptions of my Avalks about the 
 town, and of different characters I meet with 
 here, as I think this kind of minute description 
 of what comes under my own observation will 
 interest you more than any general account of 
 the country which I am able to give you. There 
 is a man now passing before my eyes well worth 
 describing. 
 
 Imagine yourself standing by me on the deck 
 of a small schooner lying in Sydney harbour. 
 There is a miserable-looking old man paddling 
 an old canoe from the Sydney side to the 
 opposite shore. The face is unshorn, and his 
 beard and hair are as white as snow. As his 
 vessel glides over the sunny waters he casts his
 
 124 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 haggard countenance towards tlie bright blue 
 sky above, and you hear him speaking vehem- 
 ently in a jargon between French and English. 
 Listen ! You now hear him fiercely cursing God 
 Almighty, and calling upon the devil. For 
 twenty years past that white-headed and impious 
 maniac has led the same life, cursing Grod every 
 day as you hear him now. He is well-known to 
 sailors frequenting Port Jackson by the name of 
 ' French Peter.' In early life he was an ofiicer 
 of the French army, but having committed 
 a murder at home he fled and sought refuge in 
 Australia. Many ^^ears ago, when he first arrived, 
 he became possessed of some propert}^ That 
 patch of land by the water-side, which you now 
 see occupied by Mr. West, was then his. That 
 land, at the present time, is worth c€10,000. He, 
 growing a reckless drunkard, sold it for 16s. and 
 a bottle of rum ! For the last twenty years he 
 has had no home, living in a hole in a rock on 
 the north shore. Some days he brings over to 
 Sydney a few oysters, and selling them buys 
 bread. The iguanas have been known to steal 
 his bread in the night, when in the morning he 
 would come back to Sydney for more, declaring 
 that the devil came when it was dark, and took 
 away his bread. Whenever you see ' French
 
 LETTER TWENTY-EIGHT 125 
 
 Peter' lie is cursing God^ and raving about tlie 
 devil. 
 
 I will write to yon again at no distant period. 
 By this time you must have received three or 
 four other letters from me, to which I shall soon 
 begin to expect answers. It is now the fruit 
 season in Sydney. The market is well supplied. 
 Peaches from one penny to sixpence per dozen, 
 which are the commonest kind of fruit here. 
 
 Clarinda send her love to you all, to which is 
 added that of 
 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 HENRY PARKES. 
 
 P.S. — I saw Mr. Badliam, of Birmingham, about 
 three weeks ago, when he informed me that he 
 had purchased the ship Renown, and intended to 
 go home in her as soon as he could procure a 
 cargo, his business in Sydney being nearly all 
 settled. 
 
 Note. — My father never appears to have carried out his 
 intention of sending home ' descriptions of my walks about 
 the town, and of different characters I meet here,' which 
 is a great pity. How interesting those descriptions would 
 be now ! It must be clearly understood that I have altered 
 nothing in these letters, and I have omitted very little — 
 good or bad, still they show what Henry Parkes was at 
 twenty-seven. —A. T. P.
 
 LETTER TWENTY-NINE. 
 
 Sydney, 
 27th March, 1842. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 We are quite unhappy iu not hearing from 
 you more frequently. It is now more than nine 
 months since the date of your last letter (June 
 6th, 1841). Intelligence has reached the colony 
 of the safe arrival of four vessels, by which I 
 sent home letters, subsequent to those you name 
 as having received; and yet I get no answers. I 
 hope, however, the cause of my anxiety is nothing 
 worse than the tardiness of the conveyance by 
 which we are doomed to receive your favours. 
 In your last you stated that father and other 
 members of the family had been suffering from 
 illness. I trust all are now perfectly restored to 
 health. We in Sydney are quite well, except
 
 LETTER TWENTY-NINE 127 
 
 little Clarinda, who has a slight cold. I have 
 nothing of particular interest to communicate. 
 Sydney is still in a bad state. In the papers I 
 send you with this you will see some particulars 
 of an action in the Supreme Court for libel, in 
 which Aaron, surgeon, late of Deritend, was 
 plaintiff. In the Australasian Chronicle for 
 March 1 7th there is an article headed ' Obscure 
 Poets ' and signed ' Faulconbridge,' which is 
 from the pen of your humble servant. Mr. J. 
 D. Badham, who, you will recollect, was a 
 passenger to Sydney in the Strathfieldsaye, will 
 be the bearer of this. He sails in a few days for 
 Liverpool in the ship Renoivn, part of which 
 vessel he himself owns. Give our love to father 
 and mother and all our friends, and for the 
 present farewell. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 H. PARKES.
 
 LETTER THIRTY. 
 
 Sydney, 
 3rd September, 1842. 
 
 My Dear Sistbe, 
 
 Your letter dated March 28t]i, 1842, was re- 
 ceived, with four newspapers, about a month 
 ago, at which time (as you will have learned by 
 Clarinda's answer) your former letter of the date 
 November 22nd, 1841, had not come to hand. 
 It has, however, now reached us by the emigrant 
 ship TJieresa, which arrived a few days ago, after 
 a passage of eight months from Plymouth. These 
 two letters lay before us a frightful picture of 
 affliction which you must have suffered during 
 the last severe winter, and our grief receives 
 additional bitterness from the reflection that 
 we were at the same time having comparative 
 ease and happiness, surrounded by all the 
 
 12S
 
 LETTER THIRTY 129 
 
 luxuriant beauty of an Australian summer. But 
 I feel it will be some comfort to you to know 
 we have been exempted by a kind Providence 
 from sufferings wkicli we would gladly have 
 shared to alleviate. For the last two years we 
 have enjoyed a state of almost uninterrupted 
 health, while the emoluments of "my situation 
 have procured us many comforts, though we 
 have hardly yet recovered from the difficulties 
 of our first year in the colony. At the present 
 time my income (which is always fluctuating) is 
 not sufficient for our support, in consequence of 
 the stagnation of the shipping interests at Sydney, 
 which, together with all other mercantile trans- 
 actions, wear a deplorable aspect. Insolvency, 
 like some fearful epidemic, is daily discovering 
 itself in some new place, and all kinds of goods 
 (British goods in particular) are being sacrificed 
 every day, at considerably less than their invoice 
 value in England. There are no paAvnbrokers 
 in Sydne}^, but there are auctioneers who serve 
 the necessitous in a similar manner, with this 
 difference, that the man who sends his goods to 
 the pawnbrokers has a hope (which too fre- 
 quently is never realised) of redeeming them, 
 while he whose goods go to the auction mart 
 knows at once that they are gone from him for
 
 130 AN EMIGRANT'S HOME LETTERS 
 
 ever. I saw carpenters' hand-saws sold at one 
 of these sales not long since at Is. 6d. each. 
 Mechanics and labourers in Sydney are glad to 
 obtain employment now at wages 40 or 50 per 
 cent, lower than they were receiving a year or 
 eighteen months back, and their money at the 
 week's end is in many instances uncertain. 
 
 Nearly all provisions are, however, now at 
 very moderate prices; bread is fourpence the 
 2 lb. loaf, and beef and mutton fourpence per 
 pound, but house rent is excessively high. 
 
 You must not infer from what I have said that 
 we are here in any danger of starving, for bad 
 as things are at present I believe they are so 
 much worse in England that I wish you were all 
 in safety here. I ought to state that the great 
 cause of an overabundance of labour now in 
 Sydney is the objection which men feel to going 
 into the interior, for, seeing that ' life has ample 
 room ' in the country, there can be no fear of a 
 general dearth of employment for a hundred 
 years to come, provided the amount of capital be 
 proportionate to that of labour. 
 
 As yet I am quite unsettled in my purpose for 
 the future, or whether or not I shall remain in 
 the colony, but I hope I shall be more decided 
 in the course of a year or two. I am beginning-
 
 LETTER TSIRTY 131 
 
 to sigh for a permanent home. It may be fixed 
 in the immense wilds of this wonderful country, 
 or amidst the native haunts of the New Zealand 
 savage ; or it may be in the beautiful and fertile 
 island of Otaheite, or in Chili, or Peru, or it may 
 be among the settlements of Malacca, or in South 
 Africa, or the United States of America; but I 
 am Bad to think it is not likely to be in my 
 native land, though I still must hope to lay my 
 bones in old England. As soon as I am able to 
 write you more explicitly of my views for the 
 future I will be sure to do so. And I trust I 
 shall have it in my power before long to repay 
 your love and kindness to me in past years. Tell 
 our beloved mother, should this reach you while 
 she is allowed to remain with you, that the 
 prospect before her children in this strange 
 country is fair for the cloudy times we live in, 
 and assure her of our unabated affection. Tell 
 her and my dear father and my sisters and 
 brothers, and my beloved wife's friends also, 
 that, though every other feeling may be blunted 
 by continual contact with the world, our love for 
 them will receive new vigour from trouble and 
 privation, from strife and sorrow. Long before 
 you can read this I trust we shall receive a 
 happier account from you — of health banishing
 
 132 ^.V EMIOJRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 all traces of sickness, and of suffering and anxiety 
 giving place to domestic comfort and peace. And 
 now, my dear sister, for tlie present ' farewell/ 
 
 HENRY PARKES.
 
 LETTER THIRTY-ONE. 
 
 Sydney, 
 26th January, 1843. 
 
 My Dear Sister, 
 
 I received in November last your letter of the 
 date June, 1842, conveying to me the particulars 
 of my mother's death. I was in some degree 
 prepared for this sad intelligence, but when I 
 knew for a certainty that I should see that 
 dearest face no more, — that she, whose love for us 
 gathered strength from aJSliction and misfortune, 
 was now resting in the grave and could no longer 
 participate in her children's happiness or sorrow, 
 when I knew that my mother indeed was dead, 
 I felt as if a portion of this world's beauty was 
 lost to me for ever. But it is a blessed thing to 
 know there is another and a better world where 
 sorrow never troubleth and the weary are at rest. 
 
 ]33
 
 134 AN EMIGRANT'S HOME LETTERS 
 
 Could we have been allowed to meet again, for 
 me to have heard her bless my dear little child 
 and listen to her mother's story of her birth, it 
 would have been to me a happiness greater than 
 I can ever more expect. This, however, could 
 not be, and there is One above, who, in His wis- 
 dom, ordered it should not be so, against whose 
 decrees we must not rebel. May the almighty 
 and all-merciful Being comfort and support 
 those she has left behind in my native country. 
 Perhaps I am never to see any of you again, but 
 while I live I shall cling to the hope of returning 
 to dear England. In my last letter I believe I 
 mentioned that I had not been very fortunate 
 lately, and I have delayed writing since with the 
 hope of being enabled to tell you things with me 
 were better, Avhich I can assure you is now the 
 case. 
 
 The circumstances of the colony are still very 
 bad. A large mercantile house failed yesterday 
 to the amount of £130,000. Declaration of in- 
 solvency is a matter of almost every day occurr- 
 ence among the tradespeople of Sydney. Wages 
 are very low, and employment not very plentiful 
 in Sydney. In the country the only demand for 
 labour is as shepherds, and for this purpose the 
 flock-masters are striving their utmost to obtain
 
 LETTER fHIRTY-ONE 135 
 
 hill coolies from India on the ground, they state, 
 of not being able to give the price of European 
 labour, which is at present from £15 to £20 per 
 annum and rations. But I think things will 
 shortly improve. 
 
 In your last letter you remind me of my duty 
 to assist my father, and I am sorry and ashamed 
 to tell you it is not in my power at present to 
 remit anything home. At the earliest possible 
 period I will do so. I think I may say for 
 certain in the course of this year. I often wish 
 he was here with me, as I am sure I could make 
 him comfortable. I could take a farm of thirty 
 acres within a few miles of Sydney at as low a 
 rent as I pay for our house in the town, or I 
 could purchase an allotment of land and build 
 ourselves a cottage outside the town, but to all 
 these things at present the objection is Clarinda's 
 being left alone at those times when my situa- 
 tion requires my absence for weeks together. I 
 have not time to say more, as a ship sails this 
 afternoon. Give the united love of myself, wife, 
 and child to all. Clariuda and Clarinda Sarah 
 are both well. 
 
 I am, my dear sister. 
 
 Yours most affectionately, 
 
 HENRY PARKES.
 
 LETTER THIRTY-TWO. 
 
 [Note by A.T. P. — The first portion of this letter is missing.] 
 
 . . I think of them as the rural beauties 
 of a country which my children will call foreign. 
 Yes! henceforth the country of my children' 
 shall be mine. Australia has afforded me a 
 better home than my motherland, and I will 
 love her with a patriot's love. With regard to 
 my own individual prospects I am full of hope. 
 I have had my troubles, as the old ladies say. 
 When you think of my landing on the soil of 
 this country with a wife and child, the one only 
 three days old and the other in the delicate state 
 of health of a mother at that time, and with only 
 a few pence and without a home, you will think 
 I must have had some difficulties to contend with 
 since my arrival in Australia. And I have had 
 my share of them in good earnest, and not the 
 least of them I am grappling with at this 
 
 136
 
 LETTER THIRTY -TWO 137 
 
 moment. But still I am full of liope. I believe 
 my circumstances will improve^ and that speedily. 
 I see my way now quite clearly whicli sliall lead 
 me to respectability if not competence. I will 
 write again in about three months, and, though 
 it is useless for me to write to you oftener, I 
 should like to hear from you more frequently. 
 Our little girl, who is now four years old, has 
 enjoyed the best of health for this last tAvo years 
 and a half. She is now playing with the cat on 
 the floor of a little sitting room, the door of which 
 opens a few yards from the sea. Her dear 
 mother is lying down — it is Sunday afternoon. 
 In general Clarinda's health has been pretty 
 good, and mine, since my arrival in this country, 
 has been only interrupted by a short sickness 
 about the date of my first letter to you in 1840. 
 I have made inquiries after the son of Mrs. 
 Weston. The ofiicer of Customs who was 
 boarded on the Joseph Cunard tells me that 
 he saw him last June. He then looked well and 
 was respectably dressed. He thinks he was in 
 some draper's shop, but I have not been able to 
 ascertain where he is at the present time. If 
 his friends think proper to address a letter to 
 him in care of me, it is more than probable that 
 in the meantime I shall be enabled to find out
 
 138 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 
 
 where lie is. I must now bid you farewell. 
 This letter will be enclosed in a small parcel — 
 the same old box again — and sent in the care of 
 Henry Smith, an apprentice on the barque 
 Standering. The trifles inside, with the ex- 
 ception of five copies of ' Stolen Moments/ are 
 for yourself. Clarinda will send a few similar 
 presents by the first opportunity to her father. 
 Give our united love to all the Varneys whenever 
 you see them, and let them know the contents of 
 this letter as far as it relates to my prospects. 
 I remain, my very dear sister, 
 
 Yours most affectionately, 
 
 HENRY PARKES.
 
 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 139 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 I cannot better bring this little book to a 
 close than with the following beautiful letter, 
 addressed to my mother, his devoted wife for 
 fifty-two years, of whom he said, on the morning 
 she lay dead : ' She was a good woman, a good 
 wife, and a good mother/ She would have 
 asked for no higher tribute from him. Earthly 
 titles were nothing to her in comparison. To be 
 a ' good woman,' a ' good wife,' a ' good mother ' 
 was her highest aim to the last day of her long 
 and eventful life. There is a bitter-sweet con- 
 solation to me in the thought that they who trod 
 life's thorny path together for fifty-two years 
 now lie side by side at rest for evermore. None 
 can divide them now. May their good deeds 
 
 only be remembered ! 
 
 A, T. P.
 
 LETTER THIRTY-THREE 
 
 October 6th, 1844. 
 
 My Deae Wife, 
 
 Being hard tasked on board the Harlequin 
 to get my time off my hands (for day and night 
 I am utterly alone here) I have resolved to write 
 you a love letter. It is many days, some of 
 them, I hope, happy ones, since my last love 
 letter, and in their wintry sweep over my head 
 they have let fall some flakes of snow, and then 
 they have somewhat withered, and in their 
 course they have hurried us over a dreary wide 
 distance of billowy sea, severing us, perhaps for 
 ever, from our native home. But many, many 
 darker days than the darkest we have known 
 could not blight or chill that life of love in my 
 heart which dictated that last letter and which 
 dictates this. Yes, Clarinda, my own first (for 
 I have a second now) dear Clarinda, if ever a 
 heart was constant in its love, that heart is yours 
 
 140
 
 AN EMIGRANTS HOME LETTERS 141 
 
 in mine. I have questioned myself on this mat- 
 ter often and deeply, and my soul has returned 
 one only answer — ' I love her truly, passionately 
 love her !' My imagination has often of late 
 conjured up before me my beloved as I first 
 knew her in the spring of womanhood, and I 
 have listened again to her first fond words to 
 me — me, a poor and friendless boy, to whom 
 then none other had ever spoken fondly; and all 
 her faults (for faults I tell her most lovingly she 
 has) were lost in the beauty of her pure and 
 deep affection. And, oh ! I feel that, though I 
 was greatly rich and loaded with honour and 
 courted and flattered by the world (which, 
 happily, I never shall be), still there would be 
 one whose smile to me was like the common sun- 
 shine, without which I could not live to enjoy- 
 ment. 
 
 And this is my love letter to my dear wife and 
 companion, to whom I am now, for ever and 
 ever, with a heart full of love, 
 
 HENRY PARKES.
 
 APPENDIX.
 
 Note. — The following letter was sent in answer to my 
 repeated request to Mr. J. G. Hornblower to give me some 
 account of my father's youthful years, Mr. Hornblower and 
 his brother being his only friends and companions at that 
 time. With regard to the poems, ' The Emigrant's Farewell 
 to his Country' was written just before my father left 
 England in 1839. I do not know the'date of the poem ' My 
 Native Land,' but it was written soon after his arrival in the 
 colony. — A. T. P. 
 
 144
 
 InGLEWOODj 
 
 Punt Eoad, South Yarba, 
 6th May, 1890. 
 
 My Dear Miss Parkes, 
 
 You asked me to send you some reminiscences 
 of your father's youth. I am afraid you will be 
 disappointed, as the incidents occurring in what 
 may be called the ' seed-time ' of his life, which 
 had any relevancy to the prominent characteristics 
 of his manhood, were but few and uninteresting. 
 
 Doubtless your father has told you that he 
 was apprenticed to a Mr. John Holding, who is 
 described in the Birmingham Directory of 1830 
 as a bone and ivory turner of Moseley-street. I 
 may say that your father had great aptitude for 
 his business, and gave much satisfaction to his 
 employer. During his apprenticeship your father 
 was somewhat reserved in his demeanour, had 
 
 145
 
 146 APPENDIX 
 
 but few companions, and occupied his leisure 
 hours in mental improvement. The cheap pocket 
 editions of tlie "^ British Poets ' had more attrac- 
 tion for him than the out-door sports and pas- 
 times common to youth, and versification became 
 a habit before he had acquired sufficient mastery 
 of language to efficiently clothe ' The thoughts 
 that burst their channel into song.' I was his 
 printer, and, unknown to my employer, worked 
 many an hour overtime to put his evanescent 
 thoughts into print. One of his early poetical 
 effusions deserved to be placed among the 
 ' Fragmentary Thoughts ' of later days. The 
 opening lines were ; — 
 
 ' What of earth that had wings would not wander ou high 
 ' Now the stars in their stillness have peopled the sky, 
 ' And the ocean is fondly embracing with smiles 
 ' Of deep fervour and gladness her favourite isles.' 
 
 Another poem of some worth was an expression 
 of sympathy with the Poles in their final struggle 
 for national liberty. I mention these as showing 
 the bias of his mind. He was a most ardent and 
 enthusiastic reformer, a member of that great 
 and powerful association the Birmingham Pol- 
 itical Union, which carried the Reform Bill of 
 1832. While that important measure was in 
 jeopardy by the opposition of the House of
 
 APPENDIX 147 
 
 Lords; the Council of the Uniou issued an edict 
 that every member and every man who wished 
 it passed should wear upon his heart the Union 
 Jack of Old England ! Jewellers, silversmiths, 
 steel and gilt toy makers vied with each other in 
 making these insignia of the people's will as 
 pretty and attractive as possible, and I well 
 recollect the one worn by your father was of 
 ivory, the carving and painting being his own 
 work. He was one of the multitude Avho 
 assembled at New Hall Hill, and the impassioned 
 eloquence of Thomas Attwood, Joshua Scholefield, 
 Geo. Edmunds and others must have had great 
 influence in the formation and growth of those 
 political convictions which he brought with him 
 to Australia. From 1832 to 1838 your father 
 was in the turmoil of political excitement; the 
 Reform Bill was a failure, and the excitement of 
 the disappointed culminated in the adoption of 
 the ' national petition,' which demanded all those 
 political privileges Avliich are now enjoyed by the 
 people of England and Australia. I forward by 
 the same post a very scarce copy of the printed 
 report of the Grand Midland Demonstration at 
 Hollowa}'^ Head, in 1838, at which your father 
 was present. It will recall to his mind names as 
 familiar as household words.
 
 148 APPENDIX 
 
 It may interest you to know that your mother's 
 influence and example had no inconsiderable 
 share in the formation and development of your 
 father's religious convnctious. For some years 
 they Avere both regular attendants at Carr's Lane 
 Independent Chapel, under the pastorate of tlie 
 Rev. John Angell James, one of the most learned 
 and eloquent preachers of his day. At that time 
 it was your father's custom (and probably your 
 mother's also) every Sunday afternoon to walk 
 to Yardley, a village distant some four miles, 
 teach the children, and exchange tracts with the 
 parents on his way home. The years 1837 and 
 1838 were perhaps the most trying of your 
 father's life. With too much self-respect to join 
 the ranks of the journeymen of his trade, he rented 
 premises in Bradford-street, and commenced 
 business on his own account ; but although his 
 samples of turner}' would bear favourable com- 
 parivson with the best, yet lack of capital and the 
 pressure of competition forced him to retire and 
 look to other lands in the hope of finding fuller 
 scope for the exercise of his talents, far away 
 from the depressing sun'oundings of his ever}'- 
 day life. 
 
 In remembrance of many pleasant hours, and 
 in appreciation of your father's early friendship.
 
 APPENDIX 149 
 
 I shall always feel a pi-ido in having been as- 
 sociated with one who has risen from comparative 
 obscurity, reached the highest pinnacle of great- 
 ness in the councils of his adopted country, and 
 won for himself the most coveted honour Eng- 
 land's Queen can bestow. 
 With kind regards, 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 JOHN G. HORNBLOWER.
 
 THE EMIGRANTS FAREWELL TO HTS 
 COUNTRY. 
 
 I go, my native land, far o'er 
 
 The solitary sea, 
 To regions, where the very stars 
 
 Of Heaven will strangers be, 
 
 To some untrodden wilderness 
 
 Of Australasia's land, — 
 A home, which man has here denied, 
 
 I seek at God's own hand. 
 
 I have a mother, ill and poor, 
 
 A father, too, in years, 
 And have no parting gift for them, 
 
 No ! nothing save my tears. 
 
 I leave them in a busy town, 
 
 Where pale mechanics toil 
 In irksome manufactories, 
 
 Shut from the sun and soil. 
 
 150
 
 A PPENBIX 151 
 
 Fair visions yet, my native land, 
 
 Will o'er my lone heart come. 
 Whene'er I think of friendship's haunts, 
 
 Or childhood's peaceful home. 
 
 Or love's delightful wanderings, 
 
 When she, who shares my lot. 
 First plucked from 'mong the violets 
 
 The sweet forget-me-not. 
 
 And then the beauty of such dreams 
 
 Will radiate o'er my heart. 
 Till bitterly I weep, to think 
 
 That we were forced to part. 
 
 And Heaven two sinless infants lent, 
 Whose graves are told with thine — 
 
 They came and went so angel-like, 
 I dare not call them mine. 
 
 And memory, wlien her mystic chain 
 
 Back o'er the past she flings. 
 Nothing so beautiful as they 
 
 From all her treasures brings. 
 
 For their sweet sakes, my native land ! 
 
 Even if I loved not thee. 
 My heart would hover o'er thee still. 
 
 Where'er my home might be !
 
 152 A P PEN BIX 
 
 Where will my home be 1 I'll not ask ; 
 
 I would not now be told ! 
 Enough to know 'tis God who will 
 
 Tn all my being hold, 
 
 I do not know what lovely flowers 
 May deck the new world's vales ; 
 
 Ijut, though the brightest bloom abound, 
 If spring no piirarose hails, 
 
 Ith) absent beauties I shall mourn, 
 For I have loved that flower ; 
 
 And my heart's friends have loved it too 
 From childhood's earliest hour.
 
 MY NATIVE LAND. 
 
 The moonlight of a milder clime 
 Is round me pour'd o'er scenes sublime ; 
 But I would fly from nil earth's light 
 And grandeur to behold to-night 
 
 My native land ! 
 
 To-morrow's sua will beauteous ribc 
 In x\ustralasia's summer skies ; 
 But more than beautiful to me 
 Would winter's wildest morning be 
 
 In that dear land ! 
 
 'Twould almost seem that peace and love 
 Here reign as o'er those realms above ; 
 But, oh ! the counter-charm of home 
 Is found not yet, wliere'er I roam, 
 O'er sea or land ! 
 
 And greenwoods wave which ne'er are sere 
 In this December summer iiere ; 
 But 1 would turn from Eden's bloom 
 To hail, in winter's waste and gloom, 
 My native land !
 
 LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS
 
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 The Hon. Sir J. P, Abbott, K.C.M.G., Sydney ... 2 
 
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 158 LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS 
 
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 LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS 159 
 
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 160 LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS 
 
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 LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS 161 
 
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 162 LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS 
 
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 LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS 163 
 
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 164 LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS 
 
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 MESSRS. ANGUS AND ROBERTSON'S 
 
 PUBLICATIONS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS. 
 
 Publications, Pages 1 to 15, 
 Announcements, Page 16. 
 
 London and Edinburgh: Young J. Pknii-and.' 
 Glasgow : James Maclehose & Sons. 
 
 89 Castlereagh Street, 
 
 SYDNEY— October, 1S96.
 
 Messrs. ANGUS d ROBERTSON'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 IN 
 
 THE DAYS WHEN THE WORLD WAS 
 WIDE AND OTHER VERSES. 
 
 By Henry Laivson. 
 
 Author of While the, Billy BoiU. 
 
 Fifth thousand, tcith portrait and vignette title. Groion Svo., cloth, 
 
 gilt top, 5s. ; post free, 5s. 5d. 
 
 IN SPECIAL BINDINGS SUITABLE FOR PRESENTATION. 
 
 French Morocco, limp, with gilt edges, gilt line, lettered back and side 
 Rutland „ ,, round corners, „ ,, ,, ,, 
 
 ,, .. vadd 
 
 Turkey 
 
 limj) 
 padded 
 
 s. d. 
 8 6 
 
 13 
 
 14 6 
 16 6 
 18 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 In the Days when the World 
 
 was Wide 
 Faces in the Street 
 The Roaring Days 
 ' For'ard ' 
 
 The Drover's Sweetheart 
 Out Back 
 
 The Free-selector's Daughter 
 Sez You 
 
 Andy's Gone with Cattle 
 Jack Dunn, of Nevertire 
 Trooper Campbell 
 When your Pants begin to Go 
 The Glass on the Bar 
 The Shanty on the Rise 
 The Vagabond 
 Sweeney 
 
 Middleton's Rouseabout 
 The Ballad of the Drover 
 Taking his Chance 
 When the ' Army ' prays for 
 
 Watty 
 Wreck of the ' Derry Castle' 
 Ben Duggan 
 The Star of Australasia 
 The Great Grey Plain 
 
 The Song of Old Joe Swallow 
 Corny Bill 
 Lake Eliza 
 Up the Country 
 Knocked Up 
 The Blue Mountains 
 The City Bushman 
 Eurunderee 
 Mount Buckaroo 
 Ross's Farm 
 The Teams 
 Cameron's Heart 
 The Shame of Going Back 
 Since Then 
 
 Peter Anderson and Co. 
 When the Children come Home 
 Dan the Wreck 
 Prouder Man than You 
 The Song and the Sigh 
 The Cambakoora Star 
 Skeleton Flat 
 Marshall's Mate 
 The Poets of the Tomb 
 The Ghost 
 
 Australian Bards and Bush 
 Reviewers 
 
 London and Edinburgh : Young J. Pentland.
 
 3 
 
 Messrs. ANGUS d ROBERTSON'S PUBLICATIONS, 
 
 PRESS NOTICES of " Jn the Days when the World ivan Wide." 
 
 In the course of a three-page notice in The Idler for August, Mr. 
 Richard le Gallienne says : — " A striking volume of ballad 
 poetry. ... A volume to console one for the tantalising 
 postponement of Mr. Kipling's promised volume of Sea 
 Ballads." 
 
 *' The verses have natural vigour, the writer has a rough, true 
 faculty of characterisation, and the book is racy of the soil from 
 cover to cover. . . . Space forbids anything in the way of 
 quotation, and we can do no more than call attention to the 
 breezy sweep of such lines as those in ' In the Days when the 
 World was Wide,' the pitiless realism of 'Out Back,' the 
 quaint moralising in ' For'ard,' the grim fatalism of * Taking 
 his Chance,' the reflective insight in parts of such pieces as 
 'Faces in the Street,' ' Peter Anderson and Co.,' the ring of 
 'The Roaring Days,' and the hopeless note of monotony in 
 ' The Great Grey Plain.' " — Sydney Morning Herald. 
 
 " We can say of this book as a whole that it will rank as one of our 
 most treasured possessions, and we cannot too highly recommend 
 it to our readers." — New Zealand Mail. 
 
 " *In the Days when the World was Wide,' and other verses, by 
 Henry Lawson, is poetry, and some of it poetry of a very high 
 order. — Melbourne Acje. 
 
 " It is with no small degree of pleasure that we welcome the selection 
 of his poems just published." — The Queenslander. 
 
 " How graphic he is, how natural, how true, how strong '" — Bvlletin, 
 
 " We have for many years had a notion that Henry Lawson possesses 
 genius of the rarest and finest kind, and the reading and re- 
 reading of these collected pieces has confirmed our faith." — New 
 Zealand Weekly Press. 
 
 "What Kipling has done for ' Tommy Atkins ' in the great Indian 
 colony, Lawson has done for the silent wanderer on the dreary 
 Australian plains." — Town and Country Journal. 
 
 " Lawson has much of the grim, fascinating mixture of humour and 
 pathos that was once deemed Bret Harte's own." — Canterbury 
 Times. 
 
 "There are grand songs in it, with a cheery swing, that are full of 
 the odour of the gum bush, that are resonant with the sounds 
 of Australian life." — Sydney Stock and Station Journal. 
 
 London and Edinburgh : Young J. Fentland.
 
 4 
 
 Messrs. ANGUS d ROBERTSON'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER AND 
 OTHER VERSES. 
 
 By A. B. Paterson ("The Banjo"). 
 
 Tenth thousand, ivith portrait and vignette title. Crown 8vo. , cloth, 
 gilt top, 5s. ; post free, 5s. 5d. 
 
 IN SPECIAL BINDINGS SUITABLE FOR PRESENTATION. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 French Morocco, limp, with gilt edges, gilt line, lettered hack and side 8 6 
 Rutland „ „ round corners, „ „ ,, ,, 13 
 
 ,, ,, padded „ „ ,, „ „ 14 6 
 
 Turkey „ limp „ ,, „ „ „ 16 6 
 
 „ ,, padded „ „ ,, ,, „ IS 
 
 ENGLISH PRESS NOTICES. 
 
 " At his best he compares not unfavourably with the author of 
 'Barrack Room Ballads.'" — The Times. 
 
 " He shows real poetical power." — Pall Mall Gazette, 
 
 "These lines have the true lyrical cry in them. Eloquent and 
 ardent verses."— Spectator. 
 
 " It has the saving grace of humour ; a deal of real laughter and a 
 dash of real tears." — The Scotsman. 
 
 " We turn to Mr. Paterson's roaring muse with instantaneous 
 gratitude." — Literary World, 
 
 " The poet has also a note of pathos, which is always wholesome." — 
 Glasgoiv Herald. 
 
 The material is new as the treatment is artistic." — Black and 
 White 
 
 " True poetical spirit, keen observation, and a capital swing of 
 metre in this interesting volume." — Manchester Courier. 
 
 " Mr. Paterson can produce charming poetry in sweet and natural 
 language." — North British Advertiser, 
 
 London: Macmillan and Co., Limited,
 
 5 
 
 Messrs. ANGUS S ROBERTSON'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 ENGLISH PRESS NOTICES {contimied) 
 
 " This book would be a capital companion on a holiday trip, for the 
 
 epithet ' dull ' cannot be applied to a single line of it. "^IFes^ej'n 
 
 Daily P^-etiS. 
 "But Australia has produced in Mr. A. B. Paterson a national poet, 
 
 whose bush ballads are as distinctly characteristic of the country 
 
 as Burns's poetry is characteristic of Scotland." — Weslminster 
 
 Gazette. 
 
 AUSTRALIAN PRESS NOTICES. 
 
 " There is hope for the Australian poet when a volume of verse goes 
 into its third edition within six weeks of its first publication, 
 and great encouragement is to be extracted from the fact that 
 the success of the book is entirely justified by the quality of its 
 contents." — Melbourne Argus. 
 
 "Certainly no such distinctive verse has appeared among us for 
 years." — Sydney Morninrj Herald. 
 
 "A collection of really admirable poems." — The Queen-slander. 
 
 "A welcome addition to the scanty roll of writers of distinctively 
 Australian verse. The writer knows how to tell a stirring 
 incident in a spirited and vigorous manner, and the local 
 colouring is exact and truthful." — Australasian. 
 
 "The four bush ballads just mentioned are to be heard all over 
 Australia — in every station hut from Cape York to Wilson's 
 Promontory, from Cape Palmerston to Shark Bay — wherever 
 white man has settled." — Brisbane Courier. 
 
 ". . . the stirring bush ballads of Mr. A. B. Paterson, widely 
 known as ' The Banjo,' and author of the immortal verses 
 about Clancy of the Overflow." — Melbourne Age. 
 
 " There is a lilt and go in his verses which are highly inspiriting." — 
 Melbourne Leader. 
 
 " We will go one better even than Rolf Bold re wood, and claim for 
 Mr. Paterson's verse a certain ring that has no counterpart in 
 Gordon or any other poet of our land." — S. A. Register. 
 
 "The body of what lies between these covers is in some respects 
 distinctly better, as Australian Literature, than the few of 
 Gordon's poems in which the local element has been made 
 unmistakable." — Sydney Daily Telegraph. 
 
 " The best book published in Australia for very many years." — J- 
 Brunton Stephens. 
 
 London : Macmillan and Co. , Limited.
 
 6 
 
 Messrs. ANGUS d ROBERTSO^'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Songs 
 FROM "THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER." 
 
 The Bushman's Song, " I'm travelling down the Castle- 
 leagh ancM'm a station hand." Words by A. B. Paterson, 
 Music by E. P. Truman. 23. net ; post free, 2s. 2d. 
 
 Last Week. " Oh! the new chum went to the back block 
 
 run, but he should have gone there last week." Humorous song, 
 
 words by A. B. Paterson, music by E. P. Truman. 2s. net ; 
 
 post free, 2s. 2d. 
 " ' A Bushman's Song,' with its capital chorus, has been wedded to 
 
 a firm and spirited melody, and there is a vein of quaint melody 
 
 in ' Last Week ' which fairly suits the humour of the verse." — 
 
 Sydney Morning Herald. 
 " The songs are musical, and should quickly become popular." — 
 
 Neivcafitle Morning Herald. 
 "We can highly recommend the 'Bushman's Song' and 'Last 
 
 Week ' to vocalists in search of good songs." — Launceston Daily 
 
 Telegraph. 
 " Strikingly attractive airs." — Walgett News. 
 "Songs characteristic of the Australian bush. Music excellently 
 
 placed." — Wagga Express. 
 " ' Last Week ' is a rattling good song . . . full of dash. In 
 
 ' The Bushman's Song ' author and composer are again in 
 
 touch." — Richmond Eiver Exjyress. 
 
 Daylight is Dying. Words* by A. B. Paterson, Music by 
 Rene Goring-Thomas. 2s. net ; post free, 2s. 2d. 
 
 * The first twelve lines of " Daylight is Dying " are from " The 
 Man from Snowy Biver;" the remaining twelve have been specially 
 written by Mr. Paterson for this song. 
 
 " ' The Daylight is Dying ' should prove popular.'' — Sydney Morning 
 Herald. 
 
 "A very attractive and melodious song." — Daily Telegraph. 
 
 "The easy range of the song, coupled with its simplicity and sweet- 
 ness, should make it a general favourite." — Educational Gazette, 
 N.S.W. 
 
 " This pretty song only requires to be known to become very 
 popular." — The Presbyterian. 
 
 " Altogether, it it a very beautiful song.'' — Evening Neios. 
 
 " The simple grace of the music is in harmony with the words." — 
 Town and Country Journal.
 
 Messrs. ANGUS d ROBEBTSON'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 WHILE THE BILLY BOILS : AUSTRALIAN 
 STORIES. 
 
 By Hemy Lawson. 
 
 Author of In the Dayn lohen the World ivas Wide. 
 
 Fourth Thousand, Croicn Sro., doth, gilt top, ivith eight fidl -page 2}lcites 
 
 and vignette title hy F. P. Mahony, 5s. ; post free, 5s. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 An Old Mate of Your Father'.^ 
 
 Settling on the Land 
 
 Enter Mitchell 
 
 Stifiher and Jim 
 
 When the Sun Went Down 
 
 The Man Who Forgot 
 
 Hungerford 
 
 A Camp-Fire Yarn 
 
 His Country— After All 
 
 A Day on a Selection 
 
 That There Dog o' Mine 
 
 Going Blind 
 
 Arvie Aspinall's Alarm Clock 
 
 Stragglers 
 
 The Union Buries Its Dead 
 
 On the Edge of a Plain 
 
 In a Dry Season 
 
 He'd Come Back 
 
 Another of Mitchell's Plans for 
 
 the Future 
 Steelman 
 Drifted Back 
 Remailed 
 The Drover's Wife 
 Mitchell Doesn't Believe in the 
 
 Sack 
 Shooting the Moon 
 His Father's Mate 
 
 An Echo from the Old Bark 
 
 School 
 The Shearing of the Cook's Dog 
 Dossing Out and Camping 
 Across the Straits 
 Steelman's Pupil 
 An Unfinished Love Story 
 Board and Residence 
 His Colonial Oath 
 Some Day 
 
 A Visit of Condolence 
 In a Wet Season 
 Rats 
 
 Mitchell : a Character Sketch 
 The Bush Undertaker 
 Our Pipes 
 Coming Across — a Study in 
 
 the Steerage 
 Tlie Story of Malachi 
 Two Dogs and a Fence 
 Jones's Alley 
 Brummy Usen 
 Bogg of Geebung 
 She Wouldn't Speak 
 The Geological Spieler 
 Macquarie's Mate 
 Baldy Thompson 
 For Auld Lang Syne 
 
 PRESS NOTICES. 
 With enough realism in them to furnish forth the literary stock- 
 in-trade of a wilderness of pseudo-Australian novelists and 
 story-tellers. The book is admirably illustrated with eight 
 pictures by Mr. Frank Mahony." — Sydney Morning Herald.
 
 8 
 
 Messrs. ANGUS d- ROBERTSON'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 PRESS NOTICES of " While the Billy Boils " (cmtinued) 
 
 " The collection of short stories just published from the pen of Mr. 
 Henry Lawson entitio their author to honourable rank among 
 writers of Australian fiction. . . . Mr. Lawson appears to know 
 his subject thoroughly, which is one great recommendation, and 
 he shows undeniable skill in handling it, which is another. . . . 
 No other Australian writer we bring to mind could do such 
 work as this with more graphic power and certainty of touch." 
 — The Argus. 
 
 " While the Billy Boils " gives Mm an assured place amongst the 
 
 few Australian prose writers it is impossible to 
 
 deny it very high praise indeed." — Revieio of Reviews (Australian 
 Edition). 
 
 " There is both humour and pathos in the volume, which deserves 
 to be read not only for the amusement it contains, but also for 
 its faithful delineation of some characteristic aspects of 
 Australian \iie."—The Australasian. 
 
 " The best book on Australian bush life ever published, we call it, 
 without the slightest reservation." — New Zealand Mail. 
 
 "It is strong, fresh, and healthy ; it constitutes in the present a 
 delightful spur to association and reminiscence ; it will become 
 in the future a social history ; and, finally, it is a book of which 
 all Australasian readers should feel proud to think it was written 
 by a compatriot."— Oiar/o Witness. 
 
 *' We might easily fill several pages of The Queenslander without 
 wearying the reader." — The Queenslander. 
 
 " They form the most excellent and, in a literary sense, the most 
 faultless, set of delineations of bush and back-blocks life which 
 has yet been produced in Australia." — Daily Telegrajjh. 
 
 *' Its pages give us Australia in a hundred phases of character, of 
 episode, and of scenery. He is gifted, indeed, who knows his 
 Australia as Lawson knows it." — Bathurst Free Press. 
 
 " The author tells a story in the most effective way. He wastes no 
 words ; but, using the most fit phrases, he makes vividly clear 
 what he wants the reader to apprehend." — Maitland Mercury. 
 
 " Bush sketches, all written closely and tersely, and all painting 
 pictures so wholly true to nature that in his mind's eye the 
 reader can see the two selectors leaning over the slip-rail, yarn- 
 ing. . . ." — Melbourne Sportsman. 
 
 "The great world that peoples the bush, good and bad, all touched 
 with the touch of actuality, which can only come from the man 
 who has lived through that of which he writes." — Sydney Mail.
 
 9 
 
 Messrs. ANGUS d ROBERTSONS PUBLICATIONS- 
 
 PRESS NOTICES of " While the Billy Boils " {continued) 
 
 "Mr. Lawson has taken the swagsman by the hand and has intro- 
 duced him to the English-speaking public." — Sydney Freeman's 
 Journal. 
 
 " Lawson is a true son of the Australian bush, a genius to the 
 finger tips." — Oundagai Times. 
 
 •'The book is bright lively reading in every page it contains." — 
 Tasmanian Mail. 
 
 " Mr. Lawson is in the very first rank amongst Australian story- 
 tellers. " — Bendigo Independent. 
 
 *' Raises Mr. Lawson at one bound to a place in the foremost rank 
 of typically Australian writers." — Goxdhurn Post. 
 
 " Many of them are of thrilling interest and with touches of pathos 
 here and there." — Southland Times. 
 
 •'Lawson's work is certainly literature of a high order." — Timivorth 
 News. 
 
 " We have no hesitation in saying that it is the best collection of 
 short stories ever brought out in this colony." — Madeay Argus. 
 
 " The volume is most captivating reading." — Maitland Mercury. 
 
 " The book is Australian to the core, without the faults ot the 
 ordinary tepid Australian Literature, with which we are, alas, 
 too often afflicted." — Machay Merctcry, 
 
 " As Marcus Clarke has written the greatest Australian novel, so 
 Lawson has penned the best collection of Australian Stories." — 
 Dungog Chronicle. 
 
 AN EMIGRANT'S HOME LETTERS. 
 
 By Sir Henry ParJces, G.C.M.G. 
 
 With Preface and Notes by Annie T. Parkes. 
 
 Printed on Dutch hand-made paper, in Crown Svo. , cloth, gilt top, 
 imce, 6s. ; j)ost free, 6s. //.d. 
 
 Note by the Publishers. 
 
 This volume contain the letters of Henry Parkes to his sister 
 Sarah during the periods immediately preceding and succeed in
 
 10 
 Messrs. ANGUS S ROBERTSON'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 AN EMIGRANT'S HOME LETTERS (continued) 
 
 his emigration to Australia (1838-43). They record his struggles 
 for bread in London, his voyage in an emigrant ship, and the hard 
 experiences of his first two or three years in New South Wales. 
 Sometimes, in a lighter vein, they tell of his high hopes and aspira- 
 tions ; of his poetical efi"orts ; of his animal pets ; of his scanty but 
 much-treasured collection of books ; and last, but not least, of his 
 passionate love of Home and Kindred. To these have been added a 
 few other letters, including a charming one to his wife, written on 
 board ship in Sydney Harbour while on duty as Custom House 
 Officer. Those who are acquainted with his epistolary style will be 
 deeply interested in these early specimens ; and all must, we think, 
 agree with us that these charming letters, which convey actual 
 impressions at the time of writing, and which were penned without 
 thought of publication, are, from many points of view, much more 
 valuable than mere autobiography. 
 
 THE CLAIRAUDIENT : A STORY OF 
 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH. 
 
 By Ernest Rohin. 
 
 Fcap. Svo., paper covers. Is. ; post free, Is. 2d. 
 
 DETACHABLE DIET LISTS FOR AUSTRALIAN 
 MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS. 
 
 By J. W. SPRINGTHORPE, M.D., Lecturer on Dietetics, 
 &c., in the University of Melbourne, and GEORGE LANE 
 MULLINS, M.D., Physician to the Hospice for the Dying, 
 Sydney. Oblong 8vo., cloth, 6s. ; post free, 6s. 4d. 
 
 " This is a book suitable for the pocket or handbag, and contains 
 160 diet lists of twelve different kinds, viz. : — 1, Albuminuria ; 
 2, Anffimia and Debility ; 3, Biliousness ; 4, Constipation ; 5, 
 Convalescence ; 6, Diabetes ; 7, Diarrhoea ; 8. Dyspepsia ; 9, 
 Gout ; 10, Infant Feeding ; 11, Phthisis and Wasting Disease ; 
 and 12, Pyrexia. These are also so arranged that a record of 
 particulars of each case can be retained on a butt, whilst the
 
 11 
 
 Messrs. ANGUS S ROBERTSON'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 DETACHABLE DIET LISTS, &c. (continued) 
 
 sheet containing the special diet With instructions for itS 
 preparation, when necessary, can be torn off at a perforated 
 section and handed to the patient. . . . We cannot close 
 this notice without special commendation of Dietary 10, con- 
 taining explicit instructions for infant feeding for the different 
 weeks and months of an infant's early life. In the compilation 
 of this alone the authors become the benefactors to children and 
 the saviours of infantile life. VVe most warmly recommend this 
 book as an essential companion to every practitioner in his con- 
 sulting room and on his rounds of visits, being, as it is, a very 
 useful means for readily responding to that often-asked and 
 puzzling question — 'And what about the diet. Doctor?'" — 
 Australasian Medical Gazette, May, 1896. 
 
 " The lists now under consideration have been compiled to suit 
 especially Australian and New Zealand practitioners. The 
 authors have done their work in a manner reflecting the greatest 
 credit upon themselves, and these lists will, we feel certain, 
 become widely used among us." — New Zealand Medical Journal, 
 July, 1896. 
 
 Dr. William Bland. 
 
 Account of the Duel between William Bland and Robert 
 Case and the circumstances that led thereto, drawn up for pos- 
 terity by Dr. William Bland. From the original MS. in Dr. 
 Bland's Autograph, to which is appended a report of the trial 
 Rex v. Bland. Randall and Fulton, before the Recorder of Bom- 
 bay, 14th and 17th April, 1813. With facsimile oj Dr. Bland's 
 Autograph. (Only 33 copies printed, each numbered and signed.) 
 4to., half hound. 25s. [Only a few copies remain. 
 
 First Expedition Across the Blue Mountains. 
 
 Blaxland's Journal of a Tour of Discovery across the Blue 
 Mountains in N.S.W. Aline for line reproduction of the very 
 scarce original edition of 1823, Only 55 copies printed, each 
 numbered and signed, Croion 8vo., hand-made pajier, half 
 morocco. 10s, 6d. [Only a feiv copies remain 
 
 Rev. J. Milne Curran, B .G.S. 
 
 Contribution to the Microscopic Structure of some 
 Australian Rocks, With three plates. Sio., seicn. 3s. ; post 
 free, 3s. 2d.
 
 12 
 
 Messrs. ANGUS S EOBERTSON'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Rev. J. Milne Curran, F.G.S. 
 
 Contribution to the GeoloEjy and Petrography of 
 
 Bathurst, New South Wales. With four 'plattn. Svo., sewn, 3s. ; 
 post free, 3s. 2d. 
 
 Directory for Public Worshij?. 
 
 Directory for the Public Worship of God in the Presbyterian 
 Churches of Australia and Tasmania. Approved by the 
 Federal Assembly, and recommended for adoption by Ministers 
 of the Churches. Cloth. Is. 6d. ; post free. Is. 8d, 
 
 A. a Geikie, D.D., LL.I . 
 
 The Presbyterian Union of 1865 and notices of some who 
 wrought it. Fcap. Svo., sewn, Is. ; post free, Is. Id, 
 
 Dr. Samuel T. K^iaggs. 
 
 Dr. De Lion — Clairvoyant. Confessions of a vagabond life 
 in Australia, as narrated by Maiben Brook. Svo., sewn, Is. 
 post free. Is. 3d. 
 
 Henry Laivson. 
 
 In the Days When the World was Wide and other Verses. 
 Edition de Luxe on Large Paper, -with portait of Author. 
 Limited to 50 copies, each numbered and signed. [Out of print 
 
 F. Milford, M.D. 
 
 An Australian Handbook of Obstetric Nursing, compiled 
 for the use of Midwives and Nurses. With over 00 illustrations. 
 Fcap. Svo., Paper covers, 2s. 6J. ; post free, 2s. lOd. ; cloth, 
 3s. 6d. ; post free, 3s. lOd. 
 
 Dr. George Lane Mullins. 
 
 Register of Administrations of Anaesthetics for use in 
 Hospitals, Public Institutions and Private Practice. 4to., cloth, 
 5s. ; post free, 5s. 6d.
 
 13 
 
 Messrs, ANGUS & ROBERTSON'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 W. H. W. Nicholls, B.A. 
 
 Livy.— Book XX VT. (University Text Book for 1897). 
 With Introduction and Notes. Crown 8vo., boards, 3s. 6d. ; 
 post free, 3s. 9d. 
 
 A. G. Ralston, M.A., Barrister-at-Law. 
 
 Divorce Law, with all the Acts and Rules now in force 
 relating to Marriage, Divorce and all matters Matrimonial. 
 8vo., cloth, 7s. 6d. ; -post free, 7s. lOd. 
 
 Junior English Text Book for 1897. 
 
 Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, with notes by 
 K. Deighton. Is. ; post free. Is. 2d. 
 *^* This is prescribed for the New South Wales Junior Public 
 Examination of 1897. The present Australian Edition is published 
 at Is. by arrangement with Messrs. Macmillan and Co., who issued 
 the English Edition in 1891 at Is. 9d. It is unnecessary to say any- 
 thing about the excellence of Messrs. Macmillan's publications, and 
 books with Deighton's notes are already favourably known in 
 Australia. 
 
 ANGUS & ROBERTSON'S SCHOOL SERIES. 
 
 Grammar and Derivation Book 2d. 
 
 Table Book and Mental Arithmetic ... ... ... .„ Id. 
 
 Geography — Part I., Australasia .. ... ... .. ... 2d. 
 
 ,, Part II., Europe, Asia, Africa, and America ... 2d. 
 
 ,, The two parts in one ... ... ... ... ... 4d. 
 
 Spelling Book for Second Australian Reader ... ... ... 2d. 
 
 „ ., Third „ „ 2d. 
 
 ,, ,, Fourth ,, ,, 2d. 
 
 English History, Part I., 55 B.C. to 1485 A.D 2d. 
 
 „ „ Part II., 1485 A.D. to Victoria 2d. 
 
 Australian History ... ... ... ... ... 2d. 
 
 Euclid, Book I. 2d. 
 
 ,, ,, II., with Exercises on Books I. and II 2d. 
 
 ,, ,, I. and II. (combined) ... ... ... ... 4d. 
 
 Arithmetic: Home Exercises for Class III. 2d. 
 
 ,, Home Exercises for Class lY. 2d. 
 
 ,, Answers to above each 2d.
 
 14 
 
 Messrs. ANGUS & ROBERTSON'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 THE AUSTRALIAN COPY BOOK, 
 
 In Ten Numbers, 2d. each. 
 
 WHOLLY ENGRAVED AND PRINTED IN NEW 
 SOUTH WALES. 
 
 The Australian Copy Book Blotter, Id. 
 
 Testimonials. 
 
 An Expert's Opinion.— Sydney, 26th May, 1896.— The series 
 is a capital one from start to finish, and compares most favourably 
 with the more popular copy books published at home, both as re- 
 gards style of writing and the general ' get up ' of the work. 
 James Bruce, Professor of Writing, 
 
 Sydney Gram. School, St. Ignatius Coll., etc. 
 
 Australian Joint Stock Bank, Ltd., Sydney, 20th May, 1896. 
 
 — The style of writing aimed at is in my opinion a great improve - 
 ment upon the old sloping characters. — \Vm. Reid, Secretary. 
 
 Australian Mutual Provident Society, Sydney, 20th May, 
 
 1896. —I think your Australian Copy Books are admirably adapted 
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 Bank of Australasia, Sydney, 15th May, 1896.— I am of 
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 15 
 
 Messrs. ANGUS & ROBERTSON'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 AUSTRALIAN COPY BOOK (contimied) 
 
 Department of Lands, N. S. Wales, Sydney, 29th May, 1S96. 
 — The style of writing appears to be well calculated to form an 
 upright roundhand which I think the most desirable on account of 
 its legibility. — VA'', Houston, Under-Secretary for Lands. 
 
 General Post Office, Sydney, 13th May, 1896.— I find the 
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 mation of a free business style. A wise departure from old rigid 
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 Messrs. W. Gardiner and Co., Sydney, 21 st May, 1896. -I 
 
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 Mutual Life Association of Australasia, Sydney, I3th May, 
 
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 Messrs. Goldsbrough, Mort and Co., Ltd., Sydney, 20th 
 
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 Messrs. Gibbs, Bright and Co., Sydney, 2lst May, 1896.— 
 
 The Australian Copy Books appear admirably suited for the purpose 
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 boon to the mercantile world generally. — E. L. Truman, Secretary. 
 
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 Messrs. Robert Reid and Co., Sydney, 20th May, 1896 — 
 
 Your Australian Copy Books are certainly an excellent set and 
 compare favourably with the best of the imported article we have 
 seen. — Wm. Johnstone, General Manager.
 
 16 
 
 Messrs. ANGUS & ROBERTSON'S ANNOUNCEMENTS 
 
 AUSTRALIAN COPY BOOK (Continued) 
 
 Savings Bank of N.S.W., Sydney, 13th May, 1896.— I beg to 
 express the opinion that they appear well designed to give young 
 people a knowledge of a good clear business hand. — George 
 Richard Dibbs, General Manager. 
 
 THE AUSTRALIAN COPY ROOK ANNUAL WRITING 
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 Open to all Pupils in the Schools of Australasia. 
 
 One Gold Medal, one Silver Medal, and 118 Book Prizes to the 
 
 value of £30. 
 
 SPECIAL PRIZES FOR PUPIL TEACHERS. 
 
 The following prizes will be awarded to pupil teachers for the 
 
 best written set of the Australian Copy Book, Nos. 1 to 10 inclusive: 
 
 1st prize ... Gold medal. 
 2nd ,, ... Silver medal. 
 3rd ,, ... Books value 25s. 
 
 4th prize ... Books value 20s. 
 5th ,, ... „ „ 15s. 
 6th ,, ... „ ,, 10s. 
 
 For further particulars apply to the publishers. 
 
 Rev. J. Milne Curran, F.G.S. 
 
 Elementary Geology for Australian Students, with about 
 200 illustrations, mostly of Australian subjects. By Rev. 
 John Milne Ccrran, Lecturer in Geology, Department of 
 Technical Education, N. S. \V. [In jireparation. 
 
 Victor J. Daley. 
 
 Poems. By Victor J. Daley. [Shortly. 
 
 Edward Dyson. 
 
 Rhymes from the Mines and other Lines. By Edward 
 Dyson, Author of A Golden Shanty. [Shortly. 
 
 John Farrell. 
 My Sundowner and other Poems, By John Farrell, 
 
 Author of Hoiv he Died. [Shortly. 
 
 Barcroft H. Boake. 
 Poems. By Barcroft H. Boake. Edited, with memoir, 
 by A. G. Stephens. [In preparation. 
 
 Wbbsdale, Shoosmith and Co., Printers, ll? Clarence-st., Sydney.
 
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