I have to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch, No. 48 of the
18th March enclosing a letter from the Chief Justice of
Vancouver Island
in which he puts forward a claim for compensation for conducting a
Commission issued by
CaptainKennedy
Kennedy to enquire into the loss of the
Mail Steamer "
Labouchere."
You will have the goodness to inform
Mr. Needham that the
Government feels indebted to him for his assistance on that occasion,
but that it is one of a kind in which eminent Public Officers are
accustomed to give the benefit of their services to the Public without
additional pay, and that I do not think that it would be proper subject
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for special remuneration.