3-002 (Original)

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DEAR MOTHER, BROTHERS AND SISTERS,
We are quite well, hoping this will find ye all likewise. Dear Mother we are now 70 miles from home at the Goldmines, there is about 800 men at the diggings. I am getting at the very least £12 per week to my own Share, there is the three in our party and we all dig the hole first and then we wash, one rocks the cradle and the other heals [bails] in the water, and another draws the stuff to be washed, the cradle is just like a childs cradle with a wire cive [sieve] on the top, which we wash the earth in what lies in the bottom that we take in a tin dish and washes, Sometimes we get one ounce and sometimes more, the gold is £3 per oz, and sometimes we get 2 or 4 oz in the day, it is £3-17s in England. Dear Brothers I would advise you all to come out, and my brother-in-law, for I think you could do well out here. There is poor boys come out here in the same vessel with me that is independant just with this gold work. I would like to see John and William and George and in fact you all if my mother was aggreable, to come and if not let George leave the place with Sinclair and send him money for paying in it [the rent] and if not come on and if you prefer wheeling earth on the bracklagh hills, to gold here, you may stay, but if not come on like men. [54] You need not fear the sea, for it is not half as dangerous as going to America, and if you come put your name down for emigration to Port Phillip, and when you land in the bay write to Mr. Bell, Grocer, Newtown, or come on and inquire for him and you will not go astray, for he is a Brother-in-Law of mine. You can get out on a free passage, as well as a paid one, and be thought of as much as if you had paid it 10 times, Dear Mother, I hope you will have spent as happy a Christmas day as I have, one of us went down into the hole and got 6 oz of pure gold. Dear Brother, come out here for I think you could not do better than come, for if you were working until you be old men you could not do as well as you could do here in one twelve month, or in two years you would be independant. Dear Mother if you could bring out some flour and some butter and ham or two of Bacon and some tea and sugar and some Baking Soda and bring plenty of Shoes and boots, and if the girls come they need not bring any dresses, they are as cheap here as at home, but the girls might bring 5 or 4 pairs of boots and Shoes. They might bring my wife three or four pair of fine ones and I will pay them. Get ones with lether straps across the toe of them, they should be a middling large size 4 or 5's and dont forget a fether bed for me, put it in the bottom of your chest. Give my love to all inquiring friends, John McFarland could do well here, my wife and Sarah Jane hoping to see ye,
YOURS TRULY 
R.H. SHEGOG.
P.S. The gold is for seven years in these mountains, it is for 30 miles around here, when ye come ashore dress yourselves well and neat.
Copied at Ayle, this 22nd day of May 1852.
William Clay.
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