Letter #8 to son Alex in Australia
Busby, 26th.Feb/y 1854
My Dear Son,
I had another of your very
gratifying and instructive letters by the "Great Britain”. We are very
proud of you and you may be sure very happy at you continuing in good health
& prospering. Your letters to Sundries give us some sight of the state of
matters in Australia and open our eyes to see clearly what we are to expect.
The roads and the hod I think should moderate our desire to live in Australia.
You have been longer in the Navy line than I expected. Then what have Jack and
William to look for. Navy. The gold diggings are less tempting too now, when
you look on it as madness in White.
The cutting is to be rather
slack this summer. The shawl printing trade is not so good as it was these
three seasons past. Jack and William are idle. William's shop has been wholly
idle these three months but he has jobbed at home. Busby printers are very busy
and the cutters doing fair. Two new 12 coloured machines have started. I trust
John Leckie is better than ever. Success to him. Your squatters ought to tax
themselves. They must give in like our own monopolists. The diggers are
enriching them and should go as little taxed as possible. It was young John
Aitcheson that died. I am acquainted with Mr. Barr of the Examiner and gave as
a favour your letter to publish. The extracts he made I did not consider fair
so I gave him no more letters. The advertisement as to the satisfactory
arrangements was published before your letter arrived. The armchair arrived. My
housekeeper Anne Cairns sail from Glasgow on the 8th.March for Birkenhead and
thence in the 'Admiral Boxer' for Australia. We will send some such thing as a
silk neckcloth with her. She has an uncle in Melbourne. His address is Mr. William
Grant, care of Mr. Brown, Baker, of Lonsdale Street, Melbourne. Mr. Wylie has a
friend flourishing in Melbourne. He sends a letter he wishes you to deliver
yourself. It is recommending you to them and Mr. Wylie hopes they will give you
a better job than you have yet had. Mr. Fleming (Jean Wilson’s husband) has got
a job at 30/- per day from Mr. Sloan. Jean has sent money to take out one of
her sisters. Mr. Loudon's son is doing well in Sidney. Thos. Kinlock is off to
the diggings, whether as merchant or digger I cannot say.
I have sent a newspaper
every week this year. I am keeping 3 copies to send with Anne. Anne is a bonnet
maker. Does Mrs. Leckie do anything in that way? We have had some rough weather
of late. A Liverpool emigrant ship the 'Tayleur' was wrecked on an isle of
Dublin Bay owing to incapacity of the hands chiefly Lascars. Above 400
perished. Another Emigrant ship from Liverpool got to Gourock with cholera
board and a third got to Oban owing to the Lascar crew. The cholera has not
visited Busby. There were a number of cases in Thornliebank Barrhead. It has
not been severe Glasgow as yet. Our friends in Camlachie are just as you would
wont to find them. James Dick is well. He had a paper from you. Mary Maxwell
(Mr. Humphreys) got a son 6 months ago. Jack and William got up a new coat each
last week. William Malcolm's wife died a short while ago. Jean Wilson gets
newspapers. Strange you do not get one.
France, England and Turkey
are at war with Russia. The forces are mustering by land and sea and I doubt we
will have horrid work by & by. The war is quite popular. Russia is entirely
to blame. I think I have exhausted any particulars I remember worth mentioning.
I may now turn a little to ourselves. You have spoken in yours letters
favourably of us all going to Australia in course of time. But I think we will
wait orders. The gold diggings I take to be the main cause of the good wages
going and all accounts suppose them likely to last for an indefinite length of
time so that wages may continue high for years and a probability that something
better than labouring may turn up for us through time. But we must leave it in
your hands. To all appearance your brothers will gain little experience in the
wright trade in this country. I thought gold digging might be my job, but I am
losing conceit of it. James Rattary should make a good auctioneer. I hope
going, going, gone won’t apply to his purse or person till he is ripe and full
of years. James Dick has some thought of trying his hand at sheep farming in
Australia. But I think he is not likely to emigrate. You might visit Jean
Wilson perhaps (I sent her direction). Mr. Sloan might have a suitable job. Ned
Rennie and Thos. Donohue enlisted in the Artillery. James McCrum & John
McLeery are Marines. A number of printers from Barrhead and Paisley have joined
the Royal Navy.
The new printing machines for the shawl & plaid trade have hurt the
printers considerably. They would have had a slack season at any rate owing to
high markets and war. I think if my father would only risk it I could carry the
hod or wheel the barrow. Or put up as good a wooden house as any clerk in the
country. J. Dick.
I now conclude trusting you are continuing a
faithful and diligent servant and though surrounded by too many whose tastes
and habits bespeak them brutish. Yet you have a few of the civilized with you
whose company and intelligent conversation give pleasure, cheer and refine the
soul. That wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace
ought at all times be before your mind's eye.
I am,
Your affectionate
Father
Alex'r Dick
Notes & Names on Letter
#8
'Great Britain'
"navy" probably means
"navvy"
John Aitcheson
Mr.Barr
Anne Cairns
'Admiral Boxer'
Mr. William Grant
Mr. Brown, baker
Mr. Wylie
Mr. Fleming (Jean Wilson's h/band)
Mr. Sloan
Mr. Loudon's son
Thos. Kinlock
Mrs. Leckie
“Tayleur"
James Dick
Mary Maxwell (Mr. Humphreys)
William Malcolm
James Rattary
Ned Rennie
Thos. Donohue
James McCrum
John McLeery
- transcription
and Names/Notes by Ian A Scales, c.1989
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