Erith, James Thomas

To His Excellency General Lord Charles Henry Somerset
Governor and Commander of the Cape of Good Hope &c &c &c
May it please your Excellency
I have the Honour this Day to acknowledge (by
Command of Your Excellency) the reply of Colonel
Bird to my Memorial of April the 21 and to
apologize for that Document being with out date
Your Excellency therin states you
see with regret and surprise that I still continue to make
Complaints which on Inquiry turn out Incorrect
and unfounded _ I beg leave to state that if Your Excellency
will allow me the request I have made in my
Memorial of the 2 of June to clear up my Charrater
by a Public Investigation of the Case at Cape Town
I Venture to affirm I will prove that the Charges
I have brought are both Correct and well founded _
in every point where I have beged Your Excellencys Inteference
Your Excellency must suppose that
after all the serious and Grave Accusations I have
brought forward _ and that that link of Persecutions
is still being exercised on Your Memorialist _ it is not
possiable for me to sit down contentedly under such a
Complicated load of Misery _ without makin Your
Excellency Acquainted with part of those numerous
Greivences _ when I last Memorialized Your
Excellency I therein Informed You that some Property
of mine had been seized by the Sequestrator as long as
as February last and that one sale had taken place
and some then remained unsold _ I have now
to state that last Week another sale was advertized
and even now they are not all disposed of _

I have Memorialized the Board of Landdrost and Hemradden
(understanding they ware seized by the order of that Board)
for the Items of their accounts that I might know what
claims they have against me and yesterday requested
the agent of the Sequestrator (whose Name was affixed to
the advertisement) to give me an answer but I cannot
obtain it
While such repeated Griveances are stated to Your
Excellency and you ware pleased to Call upon them for their
answers _ the albany District being so many hundred of
Miles from the Seat of Government will be the means
of Continuing a Correspondance of complaints and defences
to a period so protracted that the sufferer looses all chance
for redress and the guilty is suffered to go free _ whereby
if Your Excelency would allow the whole of the Charges
to be brought forward and Personly replied to at Cape
Town it will then prove wether the Charges are
Correct and founded in truth or Incorrect and unfounded
and I humbley conceive the only way of
bringing this Complicated Business to a final Conclusion
and your Memorialist will Ever Pray
James Thomas Erith
Grahams Town
10th of June 1823