Maria Stuart Collins (nee Proctor) (c. 1760 – c. 1830) was a novelist and the editor of the abridged version of An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, one of the most important contemporary historical documents recording the First Fleet and development of Sydney from its early days as a convict colony. Her correspondence with her husband's family survives and provided insights on the life for an officer's wife who was separated from her husband for a long time, while he was overseas on colonial business. Maria was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, c. 1760. She married David Collins, an English marine officer, in 1777 in Halifax. She gave birth to a daughter in 1778 who died in infancy.[1] Although born to one of the most prominent Nova Scotia families, Maria was in great financial distress after her husband's death in 1810, and petitioned the UK government for a number of years before being awarded a pension. She died in Stonehouse, near Plymouth, Devon, Great Britain, in about 1830.