No. 19
5 November 1858
Sir
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch marked private of the 2nd of September, 1 informing me that in consequence of the Great Seal 2 for the Government of British Columbia, not being completed in time for the mail, a small seal bearing the Royal Arms, had been forwarded to be used insealingManuscript image sealing the public Documents of British Columbia, until a larger Seal can be supplied. I beg in reply to inform you that the seal has been received and will be made use of according to your instructions.
I have etc.
James Douglas
Governor
Minutes by CO staff
Manuscript image
Mr Merivale
Put by?
VJ 17 Jan
C Jany 18
Footnotes
  1. = Lytton to Douglas, Private, CO 398/1, p. 56, 2 September 1858.
  2. The Great Seal of British Columbia measured 51 mm (2 in.) in diameter and showed Queen Victoria, wearing the robes of estate and a tiara, seated on her a throne with a sceptre in her right hand and an orb in her left. The royal cypher, a crowned "VR", was displayed on either side of the throne, and the image was encircled with the legend, "The Seal of the Colony of British Columbia." British Columbia was the only colony in British North America to have a single-sided seal including an effigy of the Queen. Conrad Swan, Canada: Symbols of Sovereignty: An Investigation of the Arms and Seals Borne and Used from the Earliest Times to the Present in Connection with Public Authority in and over Canada, along with Consideration of some Connected Flags (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), pp. 182-83. Any ref to small seal?? When did it arrive?? Swan notes it was used for years after confederation.
People in this document

Carnarvon, Earl

Douglas, James

Jadis, Vane

Lytton, Edward George Earle Bulwer

Merivale, Herman

Victoria, Alexandrina

Places in this document

British Columbia

Vancouver Island

Victoria