Brian Condon: Letters and Documents in 19th Century Australian Catholic History

[Source: Adelaide Archdiocesan Archives. Original of rough draft. Marked 'No. 20']

Sir,

Altho' I can conscientiously affirm that I have been not only in the disposition, but the habit of sacrificing my personal feelings, interests, and convenience to gratify and obey His Excellency the Governor, yet through misrepresentations on the part of others or his own misapprehension His Excellency appears to view me in a very different light, and for this and many other reasons I have to apprehend that the obstacles which have been placed before me (some of which, I have gratefully to acknowledge, have been removed by your kind interference) in the discharge of my clerical positive duties will be increased when you shall have left this country and when I shall have no longer a powerful and beneficent protector to look up to.

I therefore beg leave most humbly to suggest the expediency (if so it appears to you) of your sending me, forthwith, a note merely to direct or authorise me to have the petition of the R.C. of this Country, which you promised to lay before His Majesty's Government, regularly signed and transmitted to you, and to ascertain for your information as nearly as possible the accurate number of the R.C. inhabitants of this Colony.

I am directed by the Catholics of the Colony to transmit to you the petition which accompanies this letter.

[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]