Introduction
Caroline Chisholm (1808–1877) spent the years 1838 to 1846 in Australia, helping migrants to settle in and reunite with their families. On Tuesday February 26th, 1850, Charles Dickens, who was preparing the very first issue of Household Words, called on her in the hope of publishing some of the migrants’ letters she had acquired. The following passage is taken from one of those letters.
“DEAR Wife You can come out to Me as soon as it pleases you and also my Sister and I will provide for you a comfortable Situation and Home as a good one as ever lies in my power, And When you come or send You must come to My Masters House at Sydney. He is a rich Gentleman known by every one in this colony, and you must come out as emigrants, and when you come ask for me as a emigrant and never use the word Convict or the ship Hashemy* on your Voyage, never let it be once named among you, let no one know your business but your own selves, and When you Land come to my Masters and enquire for me and thats quite sufficient.
“Dear Wife do not you cumber yourself with no more luggage than is necessary for they are of no use out here you can bring your bed and bedclothes and sufficient clothes for yourself and family.
* Hashemy was a teak trading ship built in Calcutta in 1817. After Ross, Corbett and Co. acquired her in 1846, she was initially used for transporting coolies (a term coined in India for low-wage labourers, but applied especially to workers of East Asian origin) and subsequently as a convict-transport ship. On February 11th, 1849, she sailed from Portsmouth carrying 237 male convicts, one of whom was our correspondent, reaching Port Jackson (according to him) on June 8th and officially disembarking at Sydney on June 9th. He believed that only two had died on the journey, but records indicated a tally of sixteen.
Précis
At Charles Dickens’s request, Caroline Chisholm regaled readers of ‘Household Words’ with letters from Australian emigrants. In one, the writer urged his wife and sister in England to join him in Sydney, where he could supply everything they needed so long (and he stressed this firmly) as they did not remind anyone that he had once been a convict. (59 / 60 words)
At Charles Dickens’s request, Caroline Chisholm regaled readers of ‘Household Words’ with letters from Australian emigrants. In one, the writer urged his wife and sister in England to join him in Sydney, where he could supply everything they needed so long (and he stressed this firmly) as they did not remind anyone that he had once been a convict.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: because, despite, just, may, otherwise, since, unless, until.
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