Letter # 60 to son Alex in
Australia
Busby, 24th. 0ctr. 1861
My Dear Son,
The Australian mail is
behind and I have written to William and begun writing yours lest time should
fail when the letters arrive. I hope your summer trade will make amends for the
winter fall of and that you have now secured a position among the comfortable
and honourable in the colony. I wish Jack & William had a fair start in the
profitable speculation line. Theirs has been hitherto been rather dull disheartening
work though they have borne it with considerable cheerfulness.
I have put all the new in
William's so yours will be somewhat barren. Wm. Moody desires me to say that he
gained a riffle.I am sorry I have been unable to procure a portrait of Queen Mary.
They are not kept for sale and the dealers do not know the publishers.
I see by the light portion
of the mail that you are to have paid members and protection, to the
ruin of the country. Merchants, diggers, squatters are to be taxed to a few
tradesmen of various sorts to encourage them to live in Victoria. It is a
fearful delusion. Protection (deluding word) impoverises but not enriches a
country. Our Aristocracy could not come forward and ask payment for raising
crops on their estates; this would have been the sturdy beggar trade openly.
Therefore under disguise of protection they asked for a duty on foreign grain
and with fair speeches, glazed and polished till half the country believed them
honourable gentlemen. Subsequent observation showed they were deluded as well
as deluding. Their covetness had overleaped sound judgement; protection
profited them not and impoverished all others.
I hope Heales, Don &.Co
will be sent to Coventry. It would give me great pleasure should all three
contend stoutly and even publicly on the hustings &c. for free trade. A
fair field to all and every one & no favour. Expenditure on the smallest
scale taxes on the lowest, gives political peace and political contentment.
Legalize sturdy beggars (viz: give protection) and you will soon have tumults
and bands of soldiers to pay to keep the peace and massacres as at Manchester.
I have waited to the last
hour for a letter; it has not come from Glasgow. The latest American news has
just the same skirmishing as formerly; nothing decisive attempted yet by either
party and a settlement by negotiation
seems to be entertained by nobody. All attention is turned to India for a
future supply of cotton on a large scales. Other countries will increase their
driblets and the future supply will far exceed the past. But this requires time
and we are to have dull trade and all its attendant evils in the rneantime.
You Australians will
produce your gold, your wool and your hides as usual, untouched by the train of
ills your country will endure.
Of your friends, I have
nothing to remark. I hope Mr.& Mrs. King have, like yourself, got a fortune
before them. It gives me pleasure to hear of their prosperity.
I hope you all contend against all the spouting fools that trouble the
colony with tirades for paid members and protection. Your colony is the country
most unsuited for such tricks. You have too many ignorant rich fools without
buying poor ones.
Your affectionate Father,
A.Dick.
Names & Notes on Letter #60
Wm. Moody
Heales, Don &.Co
Mr.& Mrs. King
- transcription and
Names/Notes by Ian A Scales, c.1989 (note- the ‘original’ transcription was in printed format on
paper, and has been re-formatted using OCR – so may have some inaccuracies
which have escaped my editing – C. S-P)
Scans of the original letter (click
on the image below for a larger version; note
the order of the pages p.4-1, then p.2-3):
p.4,1
p.2,3
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