Letters

Open letter to Friends in N.S.W.
3 November 1825

On 3 November 1825, on her 18th Wedding Anniversary, Elizabeth Macquarie began composing a long, detailed letter to her circle of friends in New South Wales. In this letter she described the events preceding Lachlan Macquarie's departure from Mull for London in April 1824, and the chronology of incidents leading to his death on 1 July 1824.

Apart from her 1809 Journal, the text of this surviving letter is perhaps the most significant and personal example of Elizabeth's thoughts and feelings. She spent over four months drafting and composing the letter and appears to have completed it for posting to Australia on 23 March 1826. This letter provides the only contemporary description of Macquarie's death and the arrangements made for returning his body to Scotland and his burial on his Jarvisfield estate on Mull.

The original letter has not survived. However, we are fortunate that several copies of the letter appear to have been made by people in the colony and these were circulated for personal reading. This particular copy was made from one owned by the friend of the Macquaries, the emancipist Richard Fitzgerald (1772-1840). It was authenticated as an accurate copy and passed into the ownership of Reverend John McGarvie, a Presbyterian minister from Glasgow, Scotland, who arrived in Sydney in May 1826.

Transcript

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