3-021 (Text)

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Grass Dale
April 2 1851
My dearest Papa
As I have not heard from you by so many ships that have lately come to the Colony I begin to think you have made up your mind not to write any more. You promised if you got over your illness you would "tell me all about it", now to my great relief and pleasure I have heard through an indirect channel that you were convalescent and apparently in good spirits in the month of September last when Wm. Brown looked in upon you.
I fear you have been a good deal pestered with my lots of writing and that they are as the "idle wind which you regard not", nevertheless I will keep up the persecution unless you absolutely forbid it, were it only to rouse you to a fit of the spleen for it is better to be scolded at than to be forgotten altogether. Besides "coming events" justify me.
"There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at" etc - This prelude from our immortal bard which I leave you to finish from recollection or reference brings me to the relation of the fact that I am about to encounter the risk of being eaten up by Cannibals, for D.V. after the first fall of rain I set out in company with my Husband and Kenneth for the Northern Country. The object of this is for me to see whether I could make up my mind to go and reside there with the family, and I look upon it as a wondrous privilege to be allowed a choice in the matter. You know my predilections with respect to our present abode, and I do assure you I shall cast many a wistful glance behind and I am afraid there will be many lingering thoughts of regret if it is my fate to leave it, but still I will not be in the way of bettering our fortune if my Husband sees a good chance of extricating himself from pecuniary difficulties in the change. 
Good surface specimens of copper have been found on our station at Wizard Peak and the Colonization Assurance Company have taken up sixty thousand acres of land on the Greenough close to us and intend to commence operations there. They have sent out a surveyor to mark the grants who will most likely accompany us. My Husband is a good deal applied to at present both by the members of the Colonization Assurance Company and also of the Mining Company. Either of these parties will have it in their power to give an agency worth accepting when their plans are more matured, and the Governor has promised to remember you know who, let him be at Grass Dale, the Northward or wherever he may be. Now do cheer up and bid us do the same. You will say it is all expectation, there is no fruition, but wait a while and you will see that all this (to sing the song of the witches) double double toil and trouble will end satisfactorily. Now I think this is a very good ending and that it would be a pity to spoil it with saying any thing more than that. 
I am
as ever
Yours most Affectionately
Eliza Brown
P S I am afraid you look down upon us with contempt since we have harboured convicts. I must own that my pride is taken down a few notches, perhaps it will prove a wholesome castigation. I copy from the Inquirer date - but I cannot find the Inquirer and have lost half an hour in looking for it, so I give the passage from recollection. It appeared in the first publication of that journal after Mr. Brown and Kenneth returned from the Northward in Decr. last. "A native had fixed his spear in the womera and was in the act of launching it at Master Kenneth Brown when that young gentleman fired. The ball broke the native's spear and entered his shoulder. He was doing well when we left". This information had been given by the Messrs. Gregory who were aware of the incident. You see they were exposed to great dangers. The Govr. Col. Irwin and every one say Kenneth did perfectly right. The above incident had not been revealed to me when I wrote you on the 25th of Decr.
I was glad to hear that your Grand Daughter my dear Niece Ada and her Brother St Barbe were with you. How much I wish that I could see them. My youngest child has very indifferent health. Pray insert the word scripsit in lieu of sculpsit in the family picture, the latter is too monumental. 
If you have not received that interesting document I shall get the character of being very learned for this will be all Greek to you.
E.B.