Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Augustus d’Este and the Aborigines Protection Society

Augustus d’Este (1794-1848), who appears as the boy Prince Augustus elsewhere on this site (see References) saw active military service in Canada and the USA during the war of 1812-1815. Later in life, when his mobility was increasingly limited  by multiple sclerosis, he took an active part in the affairs of the London-based Aborigines Protection Society formed in 1837. He took a particular interest in the affairs of first nation Canadian populations, receiving their emissaries in his London home and using his access to government ministers to advance the petitions they brought seeking recognition of their land rights which were being eroded by European immigrant settlers supported by the colonial government of Canada.

The letter transcribed below shows him taking on financial commitments on behalf of an indigenous person named La Graisse who was prosecuted for some unclear but serious crime but acquitted. I have been unable to discover details of the case or of La Graisse’s tribal allegiance. His employment by the Hudson’s Bay Company opens the possibility that he is a native Inuit, a community often in conflict with the Hare (a sub-group of the Dene) mentioned in the letter. The writer of the letter, the Reverend Lusher (c 1787- 1849), is a prominent Methodist minister, writer, and newspaper editor. Wesleyan Methodist missionaries were deeply embedded in Canadian indigenous society and were the foremost defenders of native rights. They encouraged agricultural innovation and promoted schools (including higher level schools) for both boys and girls.

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Transcription 

Addressed to: Sir Augustus d’Este      Connaught Square       London

Datelined: Montreal Nov 6 1840

Honoured and dear Sir

I have the pleasure to inform you that the Indian La Graisse in whose behalf you have so kindly interested yourself has at last been brought to trial, and acquitted, on the ground of the moral incompetency of the witness – the one only witness which appeared against him. I immediately took him under my care, and wrote to James Keith Esqr. of the Hudson Bay Company, resident at La Chine requesting that he might be again taken into the Company’s employ; but that he should be sent to another part of the Territory than that where the Massacre took place, as he would be in danger from the Hare, among whose tribe the outrage was committed. Mr Keith at once saw the propriety of this, and has sent him down to one of the Company’s posts below Quebec. 

La Graisse is in good health and I believe very deeply feels the obligation he is under to you for all your kindness. I asked him what I should say to you about him when I wrote to inform you of his acquittal? He said he wished me to assure you of his gratitude – that he would strive to avoid all wicked practices in future – that he hoped to be enabled to love and serve God, and finally that he should happy if he might spend the rest of his life as your servant. I believe him to be sincere and grateful.

I am sorry however now to have to inform you that in consequence of his trial being for various reasons postponed from time to time, the Fee and Expenses of Counsel will amount to nearly £90. Messrs Fisher & Smith assure me that in consideration of the nature of the case, they have made the charge as low as possible. I am not sure whether it is their intention to draw on you for the amount or wait until we have the honour to hear from you. I shall request them to await your answer. 

I feel greatly honoured and obliged by the favour of receiving two or three London papers for which I presume I am indebted to your kindness. Most earnestly do I hope that the just claims which your illustrious birth and connexions entitle you to urge, will speedily prevail to secure to you that high and Princely rank and consideration which are legitimately your due. Pardon Most Excellent Sir, so humble and obscure an individual as I am, venturing to express to you these sentiments. I do it in the sincerity and fulness of my heart, and from not only a profound respect for you as a member and Prince of the illustrious House of Hanover, and of the Royal Family of England, my beloved country; but also from admiration of your Christian condescendion and philanthropy which has led you to compassionate the case of a poor despised Indian, and at so much trouble and expense, seek to promote his temporal and eternal welfare. May “the blessing of him who was ready to perish come upon you”.

Waiting your further commands, I have the honour Illustrious and dear Sir to be

Your obedient Humble Servant

R. L. Lusher

Docketing note: No. 5 From the Revd. Lusher stating the amount of the Attorneys Bill £90 – for La Grasse’s defense. Dated November 6 Received December 16^th 1840

References

Wikipedia: Augustus d’Este

Wikipedia: Aborigines Protection Society

Dictionary of Canadian Biography: Robert Langham Lusher [author: Nathan H Mair]

Aborigines Protection Society: Report on the Indians of Upper Canada (1840) – a detailed and highly informative short work available as Print on Demand

https://www.otherpeoplesletters.com/2026/07/lady-augusta-murray-duchess-of-sussex.html

Lady Augusta Murray, Duchess of Sussex, writes to her son Augustus Frederick 1807

 

Click on Image to Magnify

In 1802 George the Third promoted his youngest son Augustus Frederick to the Dukedom of Sussex. In the normal course of things his wife Augusta would have become the Duchess of Sussex, his eight-year-old son would be known as Prince Augustus Frederick, and his one-year-old daughter as Princess Augusta Emma. Unfortunately, Frederick had married in 1793 without his father’s consent, required by the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, and George acted swiftly to get his disobedient son’s marriage annulled, leaving Lady Augusta Murray to give birth out of wedlock in 1794 and again in 1801. George was more tolerant of his sons who had children in extra-marital relationships, most clearly true of the Duke of Clarence, later William IV, who had ten acknowledged children by the actress Dorothea Jordan and one other child by a different partner. The Prince of Wales, later George IV, almost certainly had children born to mistresses though except perhaps in one case the list continues to be disputed.

Prince Augustus Frederick always considered himself married and though he abandoned Augusta in 1800 did not re-marry until after her death in 1830. Augusta never abandoned the claim to be married to the king’s son and never re-married, though she had a third child Henry (1805-1824) - about whose life I can trace almost nothing - in the course of a long adulterous relationship with Lord Archibald Hamilton which appears to have precipitated the breach with her husband. Nonetheless, she continued to self-identify as wife of the king’s son and when he became Duke of Sussex began to style herself Duchess of Sussex and her children as Prince and Princess. This infuriated the King and his court and they set about making Augusta’s already difficult life more difficult with some kind of compromise only arrived at in the period 1806-1809: her debts were cleared, she got a pension and title (Lady D’Ameland) but lost control over the education of her son. All this has been explored at length, most recently in Julia Abel-Smith’s Forbidden Wife (2020).

She was supported by her own family headed by her father the Earl of Dunmore and was able to make a home for herself in the busy port and fashionable resort of Ramsgate, eighty miles east of London and overlooking the English Channel. There she occupied a fairly modest house, Mount Albion, set in grounds which she extended and carefully attended to. It was a home for her children. In Ramsgate her self-identification was always accepted as local newspaper announcements indicate: The British Press of 31 July 1804 recorded that “Ramsgate is expected to be this season uncommonly full …. The Duchess of SUSSEX (LADY AUGUSTA MURRAY) arrived here last week, to pass the season with us”; The Oracle and the Daily Advertiser for 7 December 1805 records the departure of “The Duchess of SUSSEX and family, from Ramsgate to Lower Grosvenor-street”. A seasonal Duchess - even a scandalous one - was an enhancement both to the splendour and prosperity of Ramsgate.

Elizabeth Grant recorded her childhood memories of holidaying next door to the family in her Memoirs of a Highland Lady (1898), describing Augusta’s two children as “a boy and a girl, fine, large handsome young people, unduly imbued with the grandeur of their birth. She never committed herself by calling herself or them by any title: “My boy, my girl”, she always said in speaking of or to them. The servants, however, mentioned them as the Prince and Princess, as did all the acquaintances who visited the house” ¹.

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The Ramsgate post office would have had no difficulty in delivering the 1807 letter I recently discovered, the address panel of which is my Exhibit A and the contents of which are transcribed below.

 

 

 

It is written by Augusta to her son addressed as “Prince Augustus Frederick”, exactly the kind of thing to which the Court objected. It may be a concession that the seal on the reverse does not bear the royal arms but is simply inscribed with a letter “A”.

The address panel repays some forensic attention. In Britain until the 1840s postage was generally paid by the recipient and General Post Office charges were high. But some people - members of both Houses of Parliament and so on – could claim “Free Frank” privileges using a standard formula: top of the address panel, write full date and place of despatch, in this case “1807 London August twenty nine”; then bottom left sign your name in a consistent style which identifies this sender as Lord Archibald Hamilton, younger son of the Duke of Hamilton, and since 1802 MP for Lanarkshire. But on this occasion he is providing a service for Augusta by adding his signature to a letter written in another hand, a very common favour. She may have been living or staying in his house and, if not, then with her parents nearby. In the letter she writes that she has driven a horse several times around the sqre. Unfortunately for me, both Hamilton’s house and the Dunmore’s home boasted a nearby square. Whether she was caring for her third child Henry I also do not know. The letter when handed to a postal clerk was stamped in red to confirm that no delivery charges should be levied; in this instance the handstamp topped with a crown is just visible in the middle.

The contents of the letter are in her characteristic spontaneous and direct style, something which can be confirmed from other letters and notebooks by Augusta held by the Royal Collections Trust which always refers to her as “Lady Augusta Murray” ². Augusta uses the word “Treasures” frequently to characterise her children.

Augusta had loyal servants who stayed with her for years even through financial difficulties which left bills unpaid. At the end of her letter she sends greetings to “Mrs Jones” who is clearly in charge of her older son; at the same time a “John” sends his love to his “Mammy” and I take this to be a John Jones who is employed by Augusta in London. Mrs Jones may well be the Mary Jones who appears in December 1793 as witness to the unlawful marriage of Augusta at St George’s Hanover Square; she was a dressmaker for Augusta’s family; her husband, who served as second witness, was a coal merchant. I have attempted unsuccessfully to find out more about this relationship with the Joneses which seems to have endured and been important to both parties.

In 1830 Augusta’s son was eventually granted a sinecure and the title of Sir Augustus d’Este by a sympathetic Willaim IV. His adult life was limited and shortened by muscular dystrophy but included active involvement with the London-based Aborigines’ Protection Society. It is in that connection that the second letter in my possession is written to him from Canada with whose indigenous populations he concerned himself ³.

A mausoleum, now derelict and graffitied, was erected in Ramsgate by Augustus and contains his remains along with those of his mother and her parents and his own sister Emma, later Lady Truro. The title of Duke of Sussex became dormant in 1843 when George the Third’s youngest son died but was revived in 2018.

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Transcription

My dearest good for nothing Boy I write to you tho’ you do not deserve it, but you know from Experience that mothers do not always act towards their children as they deserve – they are too much guided by affection to be wise, & this is my case at present. I expected that the day you were confined to your Room I should have heard from you, but I was mistaken – you never thought once of writing to me tho’ I had even complained of your silence; My Girl must behave better than this, - or I shall begin to believe what I have often heard – that it is a great error to love one’s children too well, - that it makes them ungrateful, instead of producing love in their hearts, love of duty. My own most dear, & for long only loved Treasure pray never let Mama feel like this. – I was very sorry not to be able to leave London this morning, - but on Monday, I do hope & trust nothing shall prevent my being with you at about six, or seven o clock in the Evening. – you have never informed me of the arrival of your Trunk, - that Trunk which I myself packed, according to your desire, the very next day of my arrival, & most of the day following that, I do hope you have received it. – The Coachman has just brought me a most magnificent Horse for driving I drove it several times around the sqre. & thought it too frisky – however the Coachman was so delighted with it that I have consented to his buying it for Mammy, but I don’t think she will allow anyone to be with her when she drives it …... – do you continue to study Mathematicks – I don’t remember yr. having an Euclid but you can get one at Burgess’s [a Ramsgate bookseller]. Pray give my love to dearest little Correspondent [his sister Emma] & Mrs Jones. Adieu my Treasure – John sends his love to his Mama & you … God bless my Treasures.

 

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References

1. Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus (1898), Memoirs of a Highland Lady, quoted from the 1950 edition published by John Murray, page 105.
2. https://www.rct.uk/collection/royal-archives/georgian-papers-in-the-royal-archives/additional-georgian-papers/lady-augusta-murray
3. Wikipedia: Augustus d’Este

Further reading

Julia Abel-Smith (2020), Forbidden Wife, London: The History Press

Mollie Gillen (1976), Royal Duke: Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (1773-1843), London: Sidgwick and Jackson

Acknowledgment

Elizabeth Peters of the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives found the Ramsgate newspaper reports for me.