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Description: | Addressed to "Dear Mouther and Farther Sisters and Brothers".
Includes responses to family news mentioned in a letter received the previous day, including the unfortunate marriage of his cousin Mary Jessop, and asks for more information about the family.
He intends to settle in Australia and be a sailor no more. He hopes that his next letter will include news about his marriage to a young woman who, together with her parents and siblings, was a passenger on his ship 'Marfit'.
Shortly after meeting her on the ship Boyce was taken very ill, only recovering shortly before arrival. He reacquainted himself with the woman and arranged for her father to carry some of Boyce's clothes ashore, as he intended to jump ship. The mate prevented him from going ashore as he suspected that Boyce would try to escape. Boyce tricked the mate by getting unnoticed into the boat, going ashore and then returning to the ship, saying when challenged on his return that "i cant see aney gud to run a whay in such a desert place as this". He was then allowed to go ashore over the next 3 or 4 days and on Boxing Day put on 2 pairs of trousers and shirts and took "all that i could take with me" with the intention of escaping. Boyce's ship mate Bill and another sailor also went with him. They first hid in the "wild bush wear thear was no wite people nothink but the natives of that cuntrey", then went into the hills amongst the freed transported men "but it was crismas time and thay was all drunk and we culd git nothink to do thear so we all three agreed to go under the rocks and liv upon fish until the ship went a whay for we dare not go in to town" as the captain had offered a reward for them.
After a month the ship left and the 3 men washed and returned into town. The first house they came to took pity on them and gave them tea and bread. Boyce then found "my youngh wouman and my close", and found work.
He initially worked at a dairy, where he milked cows for 3 months, and then left to mow hay for 3 or 4 months. He stopped this when the arrival of more labourers brought the wages down and instead went with an old man called William Holland, formerly of Freiston, who had been transported to Van Dieman's Land for 14 years and had now served his sentence. Holland had known Boyce's mother and used to be a companion of Uncle Jessop and John Tilson. They lived and worked together in the bush for 9 months, fencing land. Once Boyce had saved £40 he returned to the town and took a post with a man, helping him to keep a public house and a grog shop. His master had difficulties over licensing and with creditors, and would not pay Boyce nearly £50 that he owed him. Boyce therefore took a pony, cart and other property that his employer had left with him to evade his creditors and rented a house near his prospective father in law. He is "a going to git marrid soon as i av got all compleat but a wife".
South Australia is now his home and he doesn't expect to see Freiston again, "thear is no fear of me doing well sum whear for if i cant do well in oun place then i go to a nother i am not like you all i not a fraid to go from the smoke of my Mothers chimney for i av a rovin counviction throo the world i am not like a grait many of your freistoners afraid to leav home".
Stamped with various postmarks, the letter appears to have arrived in Boston in September 1843. | Temporal: | 22 Jul 1842 | Source: | Lincolnshire County Council | Identifier: | http://www.lincstothepast.com/Records/Re... | Go to resource |
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