Petitioners

To His Excellency General Lord
Charles Somerset Commander in
chief and Governor of the Cape of
Good Hope & its dependencies
&c &c &c
The humble Petition of the
undersigned being House and Erf holders in
Bathurst Sheweth.
That your Petitioners in building
Houses and purchasing Erfen in the said Town
did it upon the positive and declared promise
of the Town being made a Drosdy, this was not only
intimated verbally on the day the Erven were
sold; but they were actually sold from an
official plan of the Town publicly exhibited
at the sale upon which place were marked
the sites of the Drosdy House their building, the
Church, Trunk, Secretarys and District Surgeons Erfs
with all the dependencies of a Drosdy _ A Proclamation
was also read and afterwards published in the
Cape Gazette stating that other public works
were to be immediately commenced at Bathurst .
With much assurances tenderd to us and
the unbounded confidence which every true
Englishman feels, that the British Government and
the others emanating from it, will most religiously
and punctually fulfill their promises, and knowing

that in no instance has the public Faith ever
been violated without the most urgent
necessity, and even then, a most liberal
remuneration has been given to the suffering
Individuals; we your humble Petitioners purchased
Erfen and built Houses in Bathurst which has
greatly exhausted our very limited means,
and now to our great mortification, and in
some instances almost total ruin, such property
has become of little or no value but the Drosdy
not being placed in Bathurst
We your Petitioners therefore humbly
pray that should your Excellency consider it expedient
that Bathurst shall not be a Drosdy, that you
will be graciously pleased to extend to us some
remunerating aid as will fully endemnify
us for the losses sustained by putting implied
confidence in the declared intentions of the
Government of this Colony _
If your Excellency has any doubt
as to the lessened value of Erven and
Houses in Bathurst, we pray that an
experiment may be made by putting up our
Erven to sale with the assurance that Bathurst
is not to be a Drosdy, and we your petitioners
venture to predict that Erven which formerly

sold freely from RDs. 1100 to 300 each will not
now find purchasers at any price _
We your Petitioners further humbly
shew that besides the strong and irrefragable claim
which Bathurst has upon your Excellency arising
from the public promises of the Colonial Government
and its proximity to the Navigation of the Kowie
humanity pleads fervently in its interest, as
the whole of the parties situated within a
circle of 10 or 12 miles around it (except two
or three ) are of that description who do not
depend upon their Leaders for support, and
many of them as your Excellency well knows
are from circumstances over which they could
have no controul greatly straitned in their
means of subsistance; such poor people while
Bathurst contained a Magistrate and a
few Soldiers found a debouche for the small
quantities of surplus produce they could spare,
this market, trifling as it was; greatly benefited them,
it is now nearly annihilated; and with it all
hopes of finding a vent for such produce, which
is, and from their circumscribed Locations must always
remain, as to each individual; too, inconsiderable
to bear the expence of carriage to a more
distant place _ If Bathurst is not
protected by the fostering hand of your Excellency

it must soon cease to exist as a Town and with it
all chance of a market, or regular demand for labour, which
in a short time will cause the Southern part of this
district to be abandoned by the greater part of its present
inhabitants _
In conclusion your Petitioners beg to observe that
they place such entire confidence in your Excellencys well
known benevolence, and adherence to strict impartial
justice that they feel satisfied their case wants only
to be made known to your Excellency in order to secure
to them ample remuneration _ And your Petitioners
as in duty bound will ever pray
Bathurst
4 February 1822
J. M. Greathead