Letter from John Boyes to the Salisbury and Winchester Journal

After receiving his pardon and returning home from Van Diemen’s Land John Boyes wrote the following letter to the Salisbury and Winchester Journal. It is a thank you to the 1634 people who signed the petition for his release and a plea for clemency for the other men who had been convicted for taking part in the 1830 agricultural riots (the “Swing Riots”) and were still in Van Diemen’s Land.

“To the editor of the Salisbury and Winchester Journal, Messrs Eckless, Palmenter, and the Sixteen Hundred and Thirty-four kind-hearted Gentlemen, whose benevolent exertions rescued me from Slavery, and restored me to my Native Country, to my Family, and my home.
Gentlemen, - Having somewhat recovered from the fatigues of an eighteen-thousand mile voyage, I beg the insertion of these few lines in the Salisbury and Winchester Journal, to convey my hearfelt thanks; as also to express the gratitude of my Wife and Family, to all those Gentlemen who assisted to procure my freedom; to inform them that, through the blessing of Divine Providence, I have been enabled to bear my hardships and privations with fortitude, and that my health and strength have been most mercifully preserved. But, gentlemen, although I am sitting by my own fire-side, surrounded by a faithful wife and healthy family, rendered doubly dear by my late painful separation, still I cannot forget the wretched and degraded state of my fellow sufferers left in slavery, many of whom were as unconscious of crime as I was myself; many of whom have left behind wives and families equally dear, and who, being mixed indiscriminately with common convicts, exposed to the same privations, and treated in every respect the same, are only preserved from despair by the hope that their case will speedily excite general commiseration, and that the King will be pleased to listen to the Petitions of his Subjects, and restore them to their native land. To the impudent and cold-blooded remarks and questions of many who ask, ‘Do you think they have a wish to come back? Don't you think they are better off in Van Diemen's Land than they would be at home?’ - In answer to such questions, I will quote the case of Peter Houghton, of Durley, who was sent out in the same ship as myself: he, poor fellow, left a wife and four infant children, of whom he was dotingly fond, and on our passage out, many a long and dreary night have I listened (for my berth was close to his) to his heart-rending lamentation. At length, he sunk under the weight of his afflictions, embittered by the knowledge that, about the time of his landing, another helpless infant would be added to his orphan family (and which, since my arrival home, I have understood to have been the case, for, by a remarkable coincidence, his widowed wife was delivered of her sixth child at Durley on the very day her wretched husband landed at Van Diemen's Land). This distressing thought was too much for him to bear, for a few days after he landed, he died raving mad. Many peculiar cases there are that cry aloud for commiseration; but why should I particularise when all demand our sympathy? for where is the man bold enough to say that their punishment has not exceeded their offence? As a proof that they were amongst the best of labourers, I can confirm the fact, that of the 224 sent out in the same ship with myself, not one had been guilty of a misdemeanor, or had been punished for any crime up to the time of my leaving the colony, as was shown be a memorial to the Governor a few days before I left.
Such, Gentlemen, is their situation, such their hardships, such their hopes; and when their case shall have been maturely considered, the excitement that prevailed, the total absence of premeditated wrong, and the very, very few instances of personal violence committed, I do indulge the hope, that an effort will be made, and that speedily, to restore them to their anxious families. In the pleasing hope that I shall live to see them return, and with feelings of the deepest gratitude, I remain, gentlemen, your ever-thankful Servant.

Owslebury, Oct. 23, 1835, JOHN BOYES.”
 

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