Lee, William

To His Excellency General the Right Honourable Lord//
Charles Henry Somerset Governor of His Majesty's//
Castle Town and Settlement of the Cape of Good Hope//
7+c 7+c 7+c

May it please your Excellency,//

The Memorial of William Lee residing in Grahams Town//
most humbly and respectfully//

Sheweth//

That your Excellency's Memorialist belongs to the party which left //
England under the superintendance of Mr Sephton but finding he could not provide //
for the wants of his large family, (having a wife and five children) at his Location //
he proceeded to this place, leaving a man to cultivate his Land, and hoping, that under //
such circumstances /he should\ be permitted to enjoy the same privileges as his Brother Settlers have //
done, and which would be to him of the utmost importance, in a season of peril and distres+s //
like the present, when the price of Bread and Rice (two es+sential neces+saries of human //
existance) {is} /are\ absolutely advanced beyond that ability of every British Settler for purchase //
and without some as+sistance is generously given by your Excellency, inevitable ruin to the //
Settlement must ensue, for your Excellency's Memorialist in consequence of the difficulties with //
which he is surrounded, made an application for the purchase of Meal from the stores, but //
was absolutely refused any quantity even for payment while he has been denied the //
Rice which others of his countrymen have received, Merely because Memorialist and his //
family are residing in Grahams Town, so that his difficulties have become insurmountable, and //
was it, even within his present means to purchase Bread and Rice, the very act, from the //
extraordinary high price, must eventually complete his ruin //

That while your Memorialist has been denied the Rice which has been //
very kindly given by your Excellency to the British Settlers, for the cause before stated, he cannot in //
Justice to himself and his family close this Memorial without stating to your Excellency that //
a person belonging to the same party as himself, receives the valuable gratuity, by /only\ leaving //
his family at his location, although he himself is doing nothing thereon, but labouring //
at a distance from home and absolutely earning a considerable sum more that what //
your Memorialist can pos+sibly do, Yet he does not state this for the purpose of having that //
person's Rice taken off, but to shew your Excellency that he has equal (if not superior) //
claims to some who enjoy the benefits of your very kind and seasonable donation at //
so awful a crisis, for in consequence of the great and alarming scarcity of Money (every //
one almost being in a state of insolvency, and the high price of every article connected //
with the sustainance of human nature, the present time presents a most alarming //
Picture of distres+s which can never be exhibited in shades equally dark as the//
appaling original, for parental feelings were never more upon the rack in any part of //
the Globe than at his moment in the province of Albany /

That your Excellency's Memorialist most humbly prays that your //
Excellency will be graciously pleased to take his case into your most {graci} serious con=sideration //
7+ that you would be pleased in your wonted goodnes+s and clemency to order //
him to receive the Three Months rations of Rice which he has been witheld and to enjoy the //
same priviliges as others for the future and your Memorialist (as in duty bound) will ever //
pray for your Excellency and your noble family 7+c /

Grahams Town /
Aug\t/ [6\th/] 1822 /