The History of Margaret Catchpole, a Suffolk Girl

by Richard Cobbold

It is now time that our attention should be recalled to one whose conduct has, we trust, already gained him a place in the reader’s esteem, and who after all must be looked upon as the true hero of our simple story. John Barry (now most worthy to have that old English title of Esquire attached to his name, as being the highest which was acknowledged in the settlement, under the governor) had, as the reader will remember, arrived at New South Wales, and settled at Liberty Plains. He was among the earliest free settlers in the land, and was a man of such firmness and steadiness of character, of such integrity and perseverance, that he succeeded far beyond his own most sanguine expectations, and established for himself such a character for probity, sagacity, and general worth, that he was consulted upon all the most interesting concerns of the colony. He it was who suggested to Governor King the first idea of establishing the “Female Orphan Asylum,” and proposed attaching one hundred acres of land as a marriage portion for the children. He it was who laid the second stone of St. John’s Church, Paramatta. He built the first free-trader that was ever launched from Port Jackson. That he prospered it is needless to declare, because industry and integrity, with activity of mind, intelligence, and sincerity, must prosper in any place. He was a merchant as well as a great corn grower: he was also, as we have before stated, the government contractor for land. He never caballed with any one party against another, for the sake of increasing the price of land, but honestly, in a straight-forward way, stated the price per acre, the quantities that parties might have, and the money expected in a given time. He had sold for the government many thousand acres of the finest tract of land, which bordered upon the river Hawkesbury, and retained a portion for himself at Windsor, by the Green Hills, for which he strictly paid the highest price that was then given for land in that district.

His residence, called Windsor Lodge, was situated on a very commanding spot upon the south bank of the river. At a short distance from the water he had built very large granaries, capable of holding an immense quantity of grain, and this spot became the great corn-mart of the country; the grain was thence transported to the coast, and supplied every port connected with the colony. The Hawkesbury is a noble river, particularly opposite to Windsor Lodge, the house, or rather mansion, of the owner of the Green Hills around. If real worth and talent, if public and private benevolence, with the most expansive views of men and things, together with acts of such virtue and dignity as speak the spirit of true nobility, could be found in any one, they existed in the mind and heart of that youth, who left the shores of old England a simple, single-minded Suffolk farmer’s son, to become a man of wealth and goodness in a distant land.

It is true that no chivalric deed of arms signalized his career: he was an enterprising, but a peaceful man; he could boast no long line of ancestry higher or more exalted than himself. His parents were good, honest, and virtuous people, and their son bore the same character, but with the possession of superior information; and may we not, in some measure, trace the origin of all this man’s virtues and good qualities to that passion which still, as it was in the olden times, is the parent and prompter of all that is great and noble, all that is gentle; all, in short, that distinguishes man from the brutes that perish? Love dwelt, a pure and holy flame, in the breast of this young man; and change of scene, change of condition, increase of knowledge, of wealth, and of circumstances—in short, circumstances which would have changed almost any other being—changed not him.

It may seem strange to many that Mr. Barry should have been so long a leading man in the colony, and in constant communication with England, and never have heard of the fate of Margaret Catchpole. But when they understand that all notice of her career had been studiously excluded from the correspondence of his friends in England; and, moreover, that convicts of all classes, when they came to Botany Bay, were sent to the northward to be employed on the government stores, and that the Hawkesbury was devoted principally to free labourers and settlers, and that the line of demarcation between convict and free settler was extremely strict, their surprise will in a great degree cease.

Beloved and respected by all, as John Barry was, the wonder with all was that he never married. With every comfort around him, with health and cheerfulness, a goodly person, great repute, and wealth scarcely equalled by any one in the colony, he still remained a lone man; and but that he evinced a kind, benevolent, and friendly disposition towards all their sex, the females would have set him down as a cold ascetic. He was far from being this kind of person. Love was the ruling principle of his life; and though he had himself suffered so much from disappointment that he never had the slightest inclination to address his affection to another, yet he encouraged social and domestic virtues in others, and advised many not to follow his bachelor example. His own sisters he had portioned off handsomely; and one of his greatest relaxations was to visit their abodes and to delight in their happiness and prosperity.

In the year 1811, Mr. John Barry was visited with a deep affliction, in the loss of one of his sisters, who died of fever, leaving a husband and a young family of seven children. But how surely does good spring out of seeming evil! Fraught as this event was with the most poignant grief to John Barry, it was, nevertheless, the ultimate cause of the consummation of all his hopes, and the completion of that happiness which he had so richly earned. Deeply desiring the welfare of his sister’s children, and seeing the forlorn condition to which they were reduced by the death of their excellent mother, he at once acted with an energy and discretion which the afflicted husband could not command. He sought to obtain as speedily as possible some respectable person to take charge of the family, and he remembered that Mrs. Palmer had mentioned to him a valuable person, whom she had sent to Richmond Hill, to take charge of some motherless children related to herself. He therefore went down to Sydney immediately, and obtained an interview with that lady at the Orphan Asylum.

“I think, my dear madam, you mentioned to me, two or three years ago, that you lost a relative who left a young family, and that you sent a confidential female to superintend and take care of the children?”

“I did, sir, and a most valuable treasure she has always been to me. She lived with the husband of my relative for two years as housekeeper and general superintendent of his establishment. He is, however, since dead.”

“And she——”

“Is still living at Richmond Hill, but perfectly independent. It was a curious and unprecedented fact in this country, for a young woman in her situation to refuse the hand of the very man whose family she managed; but she did so, and to her honour and credit; for the love she bore me she left his service and returned to live with me. I was, as you may conceive, greatly pleased with her, and took her still more closely into my confidence. Two years after this the husband of my late relative died, leaving his whole property at Richmond Hill to me, for the benefit of his children, and in case of their death, to me and my heirs for ever. The poor children, always sickly, died in this house, and the property is now let to a most respectable tenant. I reserved twenty acres and a cottage for this young woman, who had acted so generously; and I do not scruple to tell you, that though she pays a nominal rent to me for the cottage and land, yet I have always put that rent into the bank in her name, with the full intention of leaving her the property I mention.”