Colonial Despatches

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch No. 53 of the 16th of May last, forwarding an Ordinance to apply the sum of £225,946.12.8 from the Colonial Revenue to the service of the present year.

The enclosures which should have accompanied your Despatch, and whichare are mentioned in a pencil note in the margin as about to be sent by the succeeding Mail, have not yet reached this Department, although Despatches by two subsequent mails have been received.

I have to observe that it is inconvenient to send Despatches not enclosing what they purport to enclose, both because the notification of the omission is apt, (as inthe the present case), to be forgotten, and because it in fact represents that to have been despatched from the Colony to this Department at an earlier date which was not in effect despatched till a later date.

The estimates also for the current year to which you refer, should have been forwarded to me at the same time as the Ordinance, in conformity with the desireI I expressed in my Despatch No. 17 of the 21st of June 1864, relating to the Appropriation Ordinance of last year. I shall be glad to receive these documents from you at your earliest convenience.