Colonial Despatches

With reference to your letter of the 17th instant, and to previous correspondence relative to the payment of the charges due from certain officers of the Vice Admiralty Courts in the Colonies on account of their appointments, I am directed by the Lords Commissoners of Her Majesty's Treasury to acquaint you, for the information of Mr Secretary Cardwell, that My Lords have authorized the Registrar of the HighCourt Court of Admiralty to remove from his books the sum of £7.8s.4d due from Mr Begbie, Judge of the Vice Admiralty Court at British Columbia, for the charges on his Commission as Judge of that Court.

I am desired to state that My Lords authorize Mr Begbie receiving his share of the sixteen shillings (16s/-), paid by him into the Colonial Treasury as the Fees received in the Vice Admiralty Court at British Columbia in the spring of 1865 in the case of the "Alexandria," together with any future Fees, which being received in that Court, may be due to him in his capacity as judge. He should however be called upon to make a biennial statement ofthe the amount of any Fees so received, and the arrangement is to be considered as liable to reconsideration.