Howard Party

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 /
We the undersigned, His Majesty’s loyal /
subjects, who emigrated to this Colony at the close of the Year /
1819, cannot forbear to expres+s to your Excellency our grateful /
acknowledgments to the kind and seasonable supply of Rice /
and Seed Corn which we have just received, by order of the Wor=shipful, /
the Landdrost of Albany, under the sanction of your /
Excellency’s wise and philantropic Government, and for all the /
beneficent plans which your Excellency is so promptly and generous=ly /
forming, for the good of our suffering countrymen, at such /
an alarming crisis, when a famine of bread (from the entire /
failure of two succes+sive Harvests’) is turning pale the most /
manly countenance, but which brightens as such public acts /
of christian magnanimity, which give additional lustre to the /
gems which adorn the Imperial Diadem of our beloved Sovereign /
and will survive the period, when the rude hand of Time, shall /
have completely obliterated the pages of History and destroyed /
the laurel which Fame may have continued around the brows /
of her most renowned and Illustrious Heros, and we beg leave to /
as+sure your Excellency, that your goodnes+s will operate as a /
stimulous to future Industry and diligence, in the cultivation /
of our several allotments of Land, which we cherish a hope, will /
under the bles+sings of Heaven. gratify your Excellency by hearing /
that the golden ears of a luxuriant crop of Corn, majestically wave /
before the genial breez+es of the ensuing summer but in the mean while /
we humbly and earnestly pray that your Excellency will be /
graciously pleased to order a continuance of Rice, during /
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the intervening season of peril and distres+s when we hope a /
kind and indulgent providence will permit us to enjoy the noble /
and much desired independance of providing entirely for the want /
of ourselves and our families and for which we shall ever feel /
ourselves in duty bound to pray for your Excellency and your /
Illustrious family. /
Salem Hills, Near Grahams Town /
July 14\th/ 1822 /
W\m/ Howard, Head of the party /
Henry Harper /
John Poulton /
W\m/ Tarr /
Edw\d/ Heley /
John Blakesmore /
Jiles Willan /
James Watts /
Tho\s/ Bainbridge /