“To John Cobbold, Esq., Cliff, Ipswich.
"Favoured by Captain Sumpter.”
By her good conduct in her new situation as cook and superintendent over the dairy of Mr. John Palmer, she was found to be a very useful and confidential person, and was soon looked upon as likely to be a very valuable wife for a free settler. Her fondness for children, and her management of them, came under the particular notice of Mrs. Palmer, who, without any family of her own, had from the most humane and benevolent motives undertaken the entire management of the Orphan Asylum. She found Margaret as willing and as well qualified an assistant as she could wish for.
This school was founded in the year 1800, by Governor King. It was for sixty female orphans. A grant of 15,000 acres of land was given to this foundation for the maintenance and support of the children. They were to be educated usefully and respectably, brought up to industrious habits, and to receive the best religious instruction which could be obtained for them. Few things in Sydney gave such general satisfaction as this benevolent institution; few things at that period more tended to the amelioration of the conduct of those who, from being the offscourings of such a densely-peopled country as England, were of course so deeply depraved as to be very difficult to recover from their evil habits. Destitute female children were taken into this establishment. A portion was given to each one brought up in this place of 100 acres of land, on her marriage-day, provided she married a free settler, and was herself a good character. This was a great inducement for the elder ones to set a good example, as well as to induce young free men to be approved of by the governor as worthy to receive so great a boon. Hence, in later days, have arisen many sterling characters in the neighbourhood of Sydney.
In this benevolent arrangement, the governor was mainly prompted and assisted by a free settler, who had been eight years in the colony, and was one of the first who arrived in the Bellona transport, in 1793, and settled upon a spot then called Liberty Plains. This was no other than the reader’s friend, and we hope his favourite, John Barry, whose steady and upright character was observed by the governor; he was taken into his confidence, and was a most admirable pattern for all settlers. For his strict integrity and early business habits, he was chosen as the great government agent for the distribution of lands; and he it was who suggested to Governor King the plan of forming this Orphan Establishment. In the sale of every 180 acres to free settlers, this gentleman was allowed a certain percentage, which in a short time realized to him a considerable property, in addition to that which he had already acquired.
John Barry was also the first to propose, and to assist with his wealth, the building of the first church, that of St. John’s, at Sydney. He often lamented that government would not make a noble grant of land for church purposes, and in that early day he tried hard for a public grant for the Church of England, and mourned over the supineness of colonial legislation upon such a vital subject. Had this good man lived but to see the arrival of a British Bishop of Australia, it would have added one more joy to the many which his good conduct provided for him; indeed, he always said that such would be the case. Mr. Barry had a very handsome house at Windsor, on the green hills of Hawkesbury; also a fine estate, consisting of the most extensive pastures and the finest corn district in the whole region.
John Barry had kept his solemn word with Margaret, and had never entered into any matrimonial alliance, though he was looked upon as the most eligible match in the whole colony.
And this was the person formerly known to the reader as Jack Barry, the young farming lad, the son of the miller at Levington Creek, on the River Orwell. With small means, good introductions, steady conduct, and active habits, this youth rose from the day he purchased his first hundred acres in the colony until the day of his death. Two of his sisters had gone out to him before Margaret’s committal to prison for any offence, and all that they could tell him of her was that she was at service at the Cliff at Ipswich, and that Laud was in the British navy. This gave him unfeigned pleasure, though it did not permit him to hope that he should ever see Margaret.
Had he been certified of Laud’s death, there is little doubt that he would have returned to England. But his own family, in their correspondence with him, never mentioned either one or the other person.
Indeed, after Margaret became so notorious in the county of Suffolk, they never named her to him, or sent him the papers which mentioned any word concerning her. He very seldom named her to his sisters. He knew nothing of her career, and she had actually been living some years within a short distance of his own residence in Australia, without his either seeing or hearing anything of her. In her most confidential communications with Mrs. Palmer, she had never mentioned his name, or an explanation must have taken place. She had the narrowest chance of meeting him in July, 1803, when Mr. Barry came to inspect the Asylum. A day only before he came, Margaret had been sent to a free settler’s, a relation of Mrs. Palmer’s, who had the misfortune to lose his wife, and being left with two very small children, he wanted a person like Margaret to take care of them, and to superintend his domestic concerns. Mrs. Palmer consented to let Margaret go, if she would, at least for a time, until her relative could meet with an eligible person. This gentleman’s name was Poinder, and his house was at Richmond Hill. Margaret did not raise any objection, though all felt sorry to part with her from the Asylum; she went to oblige her mistress, and received a handsome present from her at parting.