Colonial Despatches

Money being required for payment of the Colonial pay &ca of the Royal Engineers, I have the honor to acquaint Your Grace that I have authorized the Treasurer to obtain, when circumstances will permit, the Sum of Three Thousand pounds in the usual manner byBills Bills upon Her Majesty's Paymaster General, and I trust Your Grace will cause the necessary authority to be issued for the acceptance of the Bills, drawn on this Account, upon their presentation.

2. The sum of Six Thousand pounds is all that has been as yet drawn this year. The Parliamentary Vote for British Columbia ending 31 March 1862 is Eleven Thousand pounds for "Colonial Pay of Royal Engineers," exclusive of the Salary of the Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works (in command of Royal Engineers). Therefore if theCoin Coin sent out by the "Tartar," be not considered in the Parliamentary grant, there is still a sum of Two Thousand pounds available before the 31st March 1862, and this sum will, I believe, just meet our requirements on account of Colonial Pay &ca of the Royal Engineers to that date. I therefore trust that the Coin sent out by the "Tartar", and which was issued from the Treasury in October 1860, may be treated as irrespective of the aid granted by Parliament for 1861-62, for as I have before explainedto to Your Grace the remote and almost inaccessible part of the Country in which the recent rich gold fields have been opened demand immediate heavy expenditure in improving the communications &ca and so numerous and so pressing are the calls made upon me, that, although not able to meet a tithe of them, I am, nevertheless, just now more straitened for means than at almost any other period since the creation of the Colony.