Miller, William to Colonial Office 5 January 1852, CO 305:3, 539.

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Correspondence (private letter)
Miller, William to Colonial Office 5 January 1852, CO 305:3, 539.

Abstract

Correspondence (private letter). Enclosures (untranscribed) (1), Marginalia (1).

Miller suggests to the Colonial Office that the high price of land in the British colonies might lead to the eventual annexation of Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii by the United States.

This file encloses a copy of the San Francisco Daily Evening Picayune, which lists the current prices for goods in San Francisco.

Miller to Colonial Office

Observations to accompany the "Picayune" of San Francisco, of the 1st of January 1852.

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The Payment of a Pound Sterling an Acre for Land on Vancouver's Island, and other Purchase conditions, together with sundry Restrictions imposed upon British Colonists there (and hence so few of them) appear, in this part of the World, to be both injurious and hazardous to the Interests of all Parties concerned, excepting only the Americans.

To the best of my recollection this condition of selling a. 1 an acre was imposed on the HBC by Government—not wished for by themselves.

[HM]

Might it not be worth while to consider whether, if such a system be persevered in, it would not, in the end, be likely to lead to Vancouver's and Queen Charlottes' Islands becoming as Independent of Great Britain as Java now is?

It seems also very doubtful, if the Proverbially, Harsh and Prying Discipline pursued by the Hudsons' Bay Companys' Officers, and if Contracts or Sales of considerable Tracts of Land comprising Sites of future Commercial Towns and Ports, in favor of one Party, to the detriment or exclusion of other Parties, can be very durable within a Stones' throw of Yankee Equality and Yankee Enterprise not very scrupulous in this distant Region.

American Settlers—whether Squatters

Squatters or Emigrants—cheerfully surmount hardships, privations, and all sorts of obstacles, depending exclusively upon their own exertions, seldom, if ever, applying to their Consuls or other Authorities for Aid.

It is sadly the reverse with the greater part of British Emigrants whose spirit of Dependency and want of Energy are too often manifest, at all events of a large majority of such as touch at or come to the Sandwich Islands.

The high Price of, and other difficulties in obtaining Land, and forming Homesteads in our Colonies, destroy Enterprise and too often engender a very bad feeling towards the Mother Country.

Woahoo

January the 5th 1852

Wm Miller