Verney, Lieutenant Commander Edmund Hope to Grenville, Richard 7 May 1867, CO 60:31, no. 4489, 365.

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Correspondence (private letter)
Verney, Edmund Hope to Grenville, Richard 7 May 1867, CO 60:31, no. 4489, 365.

Abstract

Correspondence (private letter). Minutes (4).

Verney, the commander of the Grappler, advocates for Seymour to make the choice of where the Seat of Government will be in British Columbia or the Legislative Council of British Columbia for the council’s loyalty to the Executive. Buckingham minutes that this despatch should be put by without acknowledging, and Blake’s minute suggests seeing subsequent Govr 67/8562.

Verney to Buckingham

Travellers' Club, Pall Mall, S.W.

May 7 1867

My Lord Duke,

The accompanying copy has been sent to me of a petition which I am informed has been recently presented to your Grace.

For three years I commanded H.M.S. Grappler in British Columbia and the adjacent waters, during the last year of which time Mr Seymour was Governor.

When in some quarters there exists as strong a personal feeling against Governor Seymour as this petition indicates, it is only common fairness for me to express my views, whatever they may be worth, which are directly opposed to paragraph seven of the petition.

Although I am of opinion that Victoria ought certainly to be the capital of the Colony, I consider that the choice of the Seat of Government may well be left to Governor Seymour, whose painstaking conscientiousness in his duties must

be apparent to all who have the honour of knowing him intimately: Or it may as safely be left to the Legislative Council whose debates up to the present time have been characterized by anything but servility to the Executive.