No. 59
Victoria
8th June 1868
My Lord Duke,
I have had the honor to receive today Your despatch No. 22, of 10th April, on the subject of the financial condition of the Colony. TheReturnsManuscript image Returns called for by Your Grace I shall be unable to forward, I regret to say, by the present opportunity. They shall follow by the next.
2. As far as I am concerned I have to repeat the statement, that I have never appointed an Officer higher than a constable and have no expectation of doing so during my incumbency of Office. MydutyManuscript image duty has been simply to cut down expenditure and many are the families I have reduced to destitution.
3. To impose additional taxation, as suggested by Your Grace, would be simply to drive the unattached population out of the Colony and to leave us poorer than we are now.
4. Enormous sums were spent by my predecessor in making rival roads totheManuscript image the single Gold Mine of Cariboo. A staff of Public Officers was created sufficient for a population ten times as great as we have now. To me has fallen the melancholy task of reducing expenditure, and I may mention incidentally that my own Salary is upwards of eleven months in arrears and that the Bank of British Columbia is charging me eighteen per cent interestonManuscript image on an overdrawn account.
5. The reductions I propose to make will probably leave me without an Executive Council and I shall have humbly to request fresh Royal Instructions.
I have the honor to be,
My Lord Duke,
Your Grace's most obedient,
humble Servant.
Frederick Seymour
Minutes by CO staff
Manuscript image
Sir F. Rogers
Send to the Ty for information a copy of the D. of Buckingham's of the 10 April No 22, written on the receipt of their letter 3274, & of this despatch?
CC 17 July
FR 17/7
CBA 18/7
B&C 18/7
Manuscript image
See subsequent 102/11064/68.
Other documents included in the file
Manuscript image
Rogers to Secretary to the Treasury, 25 July 1868, forwarding copies of correspondence with reference to the financial condition of the colony.