Letter
#24 to son Alex in Australia
Busby 1 April, 1856
My Dear Son,
The last letter received from you came on Hogmonay
to D. Alexander. We have not got one since the end of November, an unusually
long time for you to give up communicating with us but perhaps you are acting
on the crotchet of not writing us till you are able to give marching orders. I
hope no letters from you have miscarried. We received a paper from you last
week per 'Emma'. I see the Ballarat gold fields have been flooded with great
loss of property to the diggers and six lives. I hope you are still in good
health and as cheerful as a young man of 21 ought to be, with whatever want of
success you may be attended. We are happy over the pushing spirit and industrious
habits you have disclosed. You will have a bountiful reward in a good time coming.
John McCubbin has written that he saw you and others of the Busby colonists. He
does not admire the life of a gold digger. I sent you a paper containing a
notice of the death of Bella Wilson. She was in the sixth month of pregnancy.
Smallpox and Scarlatina came upon her together ending in mortification and
death. Mrs. Hugh McLetchie had a son 6 or 7 weeks ago. He died this morning and
Thomas McCall's only child, a son, was drowned today in the mill dam.
We had a bonfire last nigh rejoicing over the peace
between Russia and Britain and her allies, it is no mock intelligence like the
taking of Sebastopol, but may be depended upon. That we may have a long, a
glorious and a prosperous peace is our prayer. James Thomson, foreman cutter,
had a letter stating his brother David died at Creswick Creek diggings. He had
been employed by Dixon & Wylie. Thomas Kinlock is coming home. Mr. Sloan
has found his affairs in Melbourne better than he expected.
William has shifted his master and will get more
wages. He boasts of being six feet in his shoes, but his health has not been
what we would wish. He was very poorly when he left Jackton. He is now
recovering. John intends to try a shift of masters too, with the view of
getting more wages. We had three mails from Australia last week and they were
much dissappointed when they came home on Saturday and found we were without a
letter. They are anxious to share their fortune with you. Both are keeping
teetotal and decent. Jack however has a sweetheart now and then. Busby Company
are doing a great deal of Madder & de Laine work with the machines. They
have cut a good number of patterns for blocks. The cutters are slack now and
the printers have had a sort of employment these three months, but a good
number of them have not made much. The printers in the shawl and plaid shops
have been something busy these two months, particularly about Kilmarnock. There
has been an engraving machine making progress these two or three years and the
talk goes it will hurt the engravers as the cylinders have done the printers.
There are two in course of erection at Busby. Peter Robertson is in Glasgow, he
gets 25/- per week. Cunningham Grey's time was out last week. I doubt that will
bring but a small addition to his wages. Our friends in Camlachie are all still
alive. Auntie enjoys moderate health. Alex'r is still in the grocer's shop and
Annie is learning to be a bonnet or cap maker for the masculine gender. They
live in two apartments of their old premises. A railway from Glasgow to
Helensburgh is in course of construction. I had no word of Leven folks this
sometime, I conclude there are no changes of importance going on amongst them.
I have been in the pattern cloth shop some months now. That helps. I have kept
house alone now these 10 months and put up with it wonderfully. I give out our
washing, not being quite a digger yet. But I expect should I reach Ballarat
there will be no going out of washing. Think of Willie Stevens and I in a
washing boyne. John Leckie favoured John Nirmmo with a letter at last. He quite
forgot local news himself. We understand by it that he & G. Mains have made a little and that John has
got inseparably wedded to Australia.
I have just learned that our Glasgow print shop has been surveyed to
consider its fitness to be converted into a house for hanging cylinder pieces.
That will leave only the Gate shop and pattern shop for block printers, so that
is next door to a total wind up. They, viz the masters, are not doing goods
adequate to pay the expense of cutting this season. The job shops underwork
them. I need not dilate on the anxiety of your brothers to visit you in
Australia, though it seems from what you wrote that you would have us all out
had providence furnished you with the means. Yet it might be quite as well that
they have got their trades to more and more perfection in this country. And we
would hope that the worst of Australian adversity has passed in their absence and
so they will be able and have a better chance of making a fortunate push than
in the time just past. So we still dream of a cheerful future. It
may in some measure be realized, but in this world where all is change we
cannot encourage ardent hopes. Willie Wilson boasts of the fine hunting
excursions he has by bright moonlight. He never enjoyed hunting so much in this
country. The mention of moonlight brings Horner's beautiful decription to my
mind and it may delight you more than anything else I could write
....(here follows about 12 lines of poetry).
This unmatched poetry may
delight you and please you to con it over at your weary toil. The want of books
must add considerably to the discomforts of a digger's life. I must send a
scrap every time I write to keep alive the relish for literature, for a
literary taste is one of the greatest comforts a man can have. It cheers and
ennobles.
Intelligence of Sir Charles
Hotham's death has arrived. Thomas Mclnnes is married to a Gorbals
girl.
girl.
I
am. Your Affectionate Father,
Alex'r Dick
Names & Notes on Letter #24
David Alexander
'Emma'
John McCubbin
Bella Wilson
Mrs. Hugh McLetchie
Thomas McCall
James Thomson
David Thomson
Dixon & Wylie
Thomas Kinlock
Mr. Sloan
Peter Robertson
Cunningham Grey
Mary, Alex'r & Annie Russell
Willie Stevens
John Leckie
G. Mains
John Nimmo
Willie Wilson
Thomas Mclnnes
Sir Charles Hotham
- transcription
and Names/Notes by Ian A Scales, c.1989
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