Erith, James Thomas

Waaye Platz, or New Botany Bay
Novr 17 1821
May it please your Excellency

During your last visit to Albany Mrs Erith
had the honor to hand you her Memorial, detailing the cruel
persecutions I have endured from Capt Trappes, the late provisional
magistrate of this district when, with your usual goodness, agreeable to
the prayer it contained, you was pleased to direct our present worthy
Landrost to remove me from the rock upon which he has placed me to another Location, but added That you was
prevented from attending to the other points contained in her Memorial, in
consequence of Captain Trappes having asserted that the allegations were
false, that he meant to commence an Action for defamation of character
and therefore she would hear from His Majestys Fiscal in the course
of a few days and until that was determined could say no further upon the subject
Six Months however have nearly elapsed, and
I have waited during that long period with great anxiety to the day of
Trial, when I was confident Mrs Erith would prove to a demonstration
that the whole of what she had stated were absolute facts, but notwithstanding
the losses I have sustained in waiting, during this protracted
period, No Action has been commenced ! but on the contrary he
now denies his original intention to do so ! and actually charges your Excellency
with recommending the plan to him, but a Gentleman of great respectability
in Grahams Town, who conversed with your Excellency upon the subject,
perfectly remembers (and I have this moment left him) that your Excellency
told him, Captain Trappes was going to bring an Action against Mrs Erith &c
However I I beg to say that it is now my intention to commence an Action at
Law against him, unless you are pleased to decide some other means, and
therefore as the Regt to which Captain Trapps belongs is now retiring to England
I have humbly to intreat that your Excellency will be pleased to discountenance
his leaving this Colony, until he has answered the charges I have against
him, at the next circuit Tribunal, or allow me to follow him, for I have
been wantonly injured by that man, and I cannot think that His Majestys
Ministers ever intended that any British Settler, should be then treated to
gratify private feelings of revenge, and under the sanction of Office to make
a property out of the Servants which I brought out under a written agreement
from the distant shore of England, as I shall absolutely prove he has actually
done, with a clearness not surpassed by the noon day Sun, and from the most
undeniable testimony too, I shall establish the fact, that it was he alone.
(without my consent) who dissolved my party of Servants, in order to obtain
a profit from their labours, and Your Excellency is hereby assured that these
assertions are not the hasty diction of a moment, but that of the most cool
and deliberate reflection, and therefore I humbly pray (as a British subject)
that your Excellency will be pleased to interfere with your high authority
in order that I may obtain that Justice to which I feel myself entitled,
and am Your Excellencys
Most obt and very humble Servt
Jas Thos Erith