| "Your grateful and affectionate servant, |
| Margaret Barry." |
So ends the correspondence of Margaret with her mistress. That lady wrote one more letter to her, assuring her of her joy and thankfulness at her providential settlement in the land of her adoption. She told her that she had kept the early facts of her history in such order, that on some future day they might perhaps be published, but that her wishes should be strictly attended to, and her parental anxieties respected. She took an affectionate leave of her in that last letter, promising not to intrude anything of past obligation upon her notice, but leaving it entirely to her own heart to recognize any friends of hers, from the county of Suffolk, who might, either in military, naval, or civil capacity, go out to Sydney. How delicately those wishes were observed, some can well remember.
Margaret Barry lived many years at Windsor, greatly respected and beloved. She had one son and two daughters, who received the best education which England could afford, and returned to settle in their native land. Among the foremost for intelligence, benevolence, activity, and philanthropy, is the distinguished son of Margaret; and in the future history of Australia he will bear no unimportant share in her celebrity and greatness. The daughters are amiable and accomplished, and have married gentlemen of the first respectability in the country.
After fifteen years of the tenderest and most uninterrupted domestic comfort, Margaret had the severe affliction to undergo of losing her devoted and excellent husband, who died September 9th, 1827, leaving the bulk of his property at her disposal. She removed to Sydney in 1828, where she was conspicuous only for the mildness of her manners, and the unostentatious character of her habits of life.
She had a great desire that her son should settle in her native county of Suffolk, and he came over to this country with that view; and when the sale of Kentwell Hall took place, he was nearly the last bidder for it. His resolution, however, seemed to fail him at the last moment, and he did not become the purchaser of the estate. He stayed a year in England, and then returned, with a determination not to settle in any other country than his native one. He returned to close the eyes of his affectionate parent, who died September 10th, 1841, in the sixty-eighth year of her age.
[SUPPLEMENT
BY THE AUTHOR
A. D. 1858]
Since the first publication of the Life of Margaret Catchpole, many have been the correspondents who have addressed the author upon the subject of her life and character. Many have been the inquiries made concerning her, and many things, which the author never heard of her, have since come to light. They would fill a volume. The author has no intention of inflicting any further pain upon the sensitive minds of some, who, in writing to him, have quite overlooked the idea that he, the author, had any sensitiveness whatsoever. He has no intention of reviving any feeling of the past, respecting what may or may not be mere local descriptive scenic representation; but there are certain moral representations which the author gave, both of her early respectability and character, which he deems it but a mere act of common justice to her memory to substantiate, and thus furnish the only defence which can ever be in his power to make against those who accused him of wilful misrepresentation. Though all the documents relating to this extraordinary female are duly filed and preserved,—and her own letters in her own handwriting have been transmitted for inspection to several inquirers,—there are some facts which may be interesting as proof positive of the assertions contained in the narrative. To a few of such the author now refers the reader.
The first is a letter from the Reverend William Tilney Spurdens, formerly head-master of the Grammar School at North Walsham, Norfolk; a celebrated scholar, the translator of Longinus, the early and beloved tutor and friend of the author. This gentleman had an uncle at Brandiston in Suffolk, with whom he used to stay, and to that uncle and to Peggy’s aunt he refers in this letter.