Brian Condon: Letters and Documents in 19th Century Australian Catholic History
[Source: Adelaide Archdiocesan Archives copy]
Charlotte Place
Sydney
January 12th. 1821
Sir,
I have received your letter of this day's date, enclosing one which I yesterday addressed to the Secretary and which was as conformable as I could possibly make it to the Copy with which you then had the kindness to furnish me.
The words which the Secretary requires to be added to those which I used in the heading of my letter I could, but for one circumstance applying to the present case, have no hesitation in adopting. This circumstance I beg leave most respectfully to explain for the Secretary's perusal, viz. there is one of the persons mentioned in the list which I transmitted who is a Protestant, and this person has for a series of years held and continues to hold a criminal connection with the one to whom the former wishes now to be married, and they will not consent to be married in Church. But His Excellency the Governor has given to us a verbal general permission (which it is to be hoped for the sake of public morality he does not now mean to recall) to marry persons similarly circumstanced.
This explanation will (if the hope I have just now expressed is well founded) be a sufficient apology for the non-adoption, on this occasion, of the words having reference to this subject recommended by the Secretary. But if His Excellency will not allow of my apology, in order to evince my most sincerely-felt desire strictly to obey His Excellency (when it does not interfere with a more sacred and absolute duty) I shall cheerfully, as to myself, but with regret as it regards Religion, adopt the required alteration leaving out the parties above adverted to, though this alteration will be attended indirectly by an exposure of their names.
I also beg to state with the greatest deference for the information of His Excellency that the regulation which prohibits any application for permission to be married being made at any other time than the first week of every month will, if enforced, be attended with the most incalculable inconvenience to Convicts (who of course have not the command of their own time) of the Roman Catholic Communion who may be desirous to enter the marriage state, and will in a majority of instances be tantamount to a total prohibition of their being married by a clergyman of their own Church, in a country so extensive as this, where the population is so much dispersed, where there are now but two Roman Catholic Chaplains and where in a few days there will be but one.
I am Sir
Your obedient Servant
John Joseph Therry
[Note: The most extensive collection of transcriptions of Fr Therry's correspondence remains Eris O'Brien's The Foundation of Catholicism in Australia; life and letters of Archpriest John Joseph Therry, Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1922. Vol. 1, given in facsimile before p. 33]