No. 36
8th September 1864
Sir,
I have had the honor to receive your circular despatch No. 2 of the 30th of June directing me to take care that when any Chief Justice or other Judge holding a direct Commission from the Admiralty may relinquish his Colonial Judicial Appointment, he should also surrender his Commission as Judge of the Vice Admiralty Court. The sameruleManuscript image rule is to apply to Officers holding appointments from the Admiralty as Registrars and Marshals of that Court.
2. Your orders shall of course be obeyed, but your despatch reminds me that my predecessor, Sir James Douglas, holds the only Commission issued for a Vice Admiral of this Colony. I have received none.
I have the honor to be
Sir
Your most obedient
humble Servant
Frederick Seymour
Minutes by CO staff
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Mr Elliot
I think that this Dispatch may be answered by referring Mr Seymour to the 3rd Sec of the Vice Admiralty Courts Act which was sent to him in the Circular Dispatch now acknowledged which provides that in a vacancy occurring in the Office of Vice Admiral the Governor of the Colony for the time being ex Officio assumes the Office of V. Admiral and observe that that provision of the Act supersedes the necessity of granting Commission in any specific case: Add that in order that there should be no doubt as to the Office of V. Admiral having duly become vacant, Sir J. Douglas was requested on his retirement from the Govt of Bh Columbia to resign the Appointment; which he formally did and that he was requested to take measures for recovering the Commission of V. Admiral which had been granted to him and which he represented that he had left in the Colony. If it should be still in Mr Seymour's hands it will be desirable that he should return it to this Office in order to prevent the existence of two distinct authorities bearing on the same point.
GG 19 Nov
Draft.
TFE 19/11
Other documents included in the file
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Draft reply, Cardwell to Seymour, Separate, 24 November 1864, describing the arrangement with Douglas regarding his appointment to the Vice Admiralty and requesting that if the instrument of Douglas’s appointment is in Seymour’s possession it is desirable that Seymour returns it to the Colonial Office.