Your grateful friend,
CROSBIE WELLS
Moody hardly paused before turning to the next; with his free hand, he fumbled for a chair, and sank into it, still reading.
Dunedin. January 1853
Sir how ought I read this silence that is the question on my mind. I believe you are in receipt of my correspondence but for some reason of principle you decline to answer or to extend a scrap of charity to your father’s bastard child. These letters did not take dictation. This is mine own hand sir & I can read as well & though I flatter myself I shall tell you that my parish priest Father Wells remarked more than once that I was an uncommonly bright boy. I state all this to make it clear I am no scoundrel though my station is a low one. Perhaps you wish for proof of my bastardy. Perhaps you think this an attempted swindle. I say on my honour it is not. Since I wrote to you last my needs and wishes are unchanged. I do not want to be in this country sir I never sought this life. For £20 I would return to England and never speak your name again.
Yours truly,
CROSBIE WELLS
Dunedin. May 1853
Sir I know from the provincial papers that you have taken up the post of Superintendent of the proud province of Canterbury. You took the post & offered up your honorarium for charity a noble gesture sir but one I observed with sadness. I wondered if you thought of me as you gave that £100 away. I have not the means to travel to Lyttelton where you are much less back home. I have never felt more alone than I do in this forsaken land surely you will understand this as a British man yourself. We have creeping damp and frost in-doors I wake most mornings with a rime of ice across my legs. I am not suited to the hard frontier & mourn my circumstances daily. Sir in this year past I have saved only £2 10s. 4d & I have now spent 4d upon these pages and postage. I beg of you to help
A man in need
CROSBIE WELLS
Dunedin. October 1853
Sir I write in great dejection. I am certain now that you will never write back to me & even I a whoreson am too proud to beg again. I am a sinner like our father the apple falling never far as the common saying goes. But in my youth I was taught that charity is a primary virtue & one to be practised most especially when that virtue is not due. You sir are not behaving as a Christian man. I do believe that if our respective circumstances were reversed I would not maintain the cruel silence that you keep with me. Rest assured I will not beg your charity again but I wish to make my dejection known to you. I have been following your career in the pages of the ‘Otago Witness’ & I know you are a man of no small means & much opinion. I have neither privilege but notwithstanding my abject position I am proud to call myself a Christian man & if you were in need sir I should turn my pockets out to help you as your brother. I do not expect that you will reply and perhaps I will die soon and you will never hear from me again. Even in the likelihood of that event I am proud to remain
Yours very sincerely
CROSBIE WELLS
Dunedin. January 1854
Sir I must apologise for the letter I wrote you last as it was written bitterly & with the purpose of insulting you. My mother warned me never to touch a pen when in a temper & now I see the wisdom in her words. My mother you have never known of course but she was quite a beauty in her time. SUE BUTCHER was her name in life God rest her soul though she also went by other names better suited to her line of work & liked to invent new ones at her pleasure. She was our father’s particular favourite a preference that was formed she said upon the handsome colour of her eyes. I do not resemble her except in pieces. She always said that I bore my father’s likeness though my father never returned to the whorehouse after I was born & as you know I never met him. I have been told that prostitution is a social ill composed of male licentiousness on the one hand & female depravity on the other & although I know this to be the opinion of wiser men than I nevertheless it does not make sense of how I remember my mother in my mind. She had ‘fine pipes’ & loved to sing all manner of hymns in the morning a practice that I also loved. I believe she was kind & hardworking & although she was known to be a flirt she was a very good one. How strange that we have separate mothers but share a father. I suppose it means that we are only half alike. But forgive these idle meditations & please accept my apologies & my assurance that I remain
Yours
CROSBIE WELLS
Dunedin. June 1854
Sir perhaps it is right you do not reply. You are acting only as a man of your high station can & you have a reputation to consider. I think I have become contented with your silence strange though that might sound. I have secured a modest wage & decent lodgings & I am ‘settling down’ as they term it here. I find Dunedin much changed in the summer months. The sun is bright on the hills & on the water & I can bear the briskness very well. How odd it is that I should find myself on the contrary face of the world. I believe that I am as far from England as any man could be. You will be surprised to learn that I am not to return home after all. I have resolved to make New Zealand the land in which I will be buried. Perhaps you wonder what spurred this change of heart & so I shall tell you. You see in New Zealand every man has left his former life behind & every man is equal in his way. Of course the flockmasters of Otago are barons here just as they were barons in the Scottish Highlands but for men like me there is a chance to rise. I find this very cheering. It is not uncommon for men to tip their hats to one another in the street regardless of their station. For you perhaps this is not a strange occurrence but for me it is a wondrous one. The frontier I think makes brothers of us all & in making this remark I shall remain
Yours very truly
CROSBIE WELLS
Dunedin. August 1854
Sir you will I hope forgive these letters I have no other correspondents & thoughts of you consume my days. I have been waxing philosophical myself in thinking what might have happened if you knew me sooner or if I knew you. I do not know your age so I do not know if you are the elder or if I am the elder. In my mind the difference signifies & because I am the bastard I imagine myself younger but of course that might not be the case. There were other children in the whorehouse several girls who grew up whoring & one boy who died of smallpox when I was very young but I was the eldest always & I should have liked a brother to admire. I have been thinking with much sadness upon the fact that I do not know whether you have sisters & brothers or if there are other bastards or if your father ever spoke of me to you. If I were in London I would be taking every chance to walk to Glen House & look in through the railings & spy my father whom you remember I have never seen. I have his letter still it says he knew of me & watched me and I wonder what he thought of me & what he might think about the life I lead here. But perhaps he is no longer living. You wish not to be my brother you have made that clear but perhaps you are as my priest with our correspondence as confession. I am heartened by this notion for I say with pride that I was properly confirmed. But I expect you are a Church of England man.