No. 10
Downing Street
21 February 1860
Sir,
I have to acknowledge your despatch No. 64 of the 17th of December last, informing me that under the legal difficulty which at present impedes the grant of land in Vancouver Island you had authorized the Colonial Surveyor as a provisional arrangement to permit settlers to occupy certain lands situate withinManuscript imagewithin the surveyed districts of Vancouver Island, with a preemptive right.
I approve of this measure as the best course which was probably open to you under the circumstances.
At the same time I have to inform you that I am in correspondence with the Hudsons Bay Company as to the best mode of terminating the uncertainty which now prevails, by obtaining from them authority to enable you to sell the waste landManuscript imageland, under a provisional arrangement as to the proceeds between the Crown and the Company, until the claims of the latter are fully adjusted and the repurchase effected.
And I hope to be enabled very soon to give you instructions on this head.
I have etc.
Newcastle
People in this document

Douglas, James

Pelham-Clinton, Henry Pelham Fiennes

Organizations in this document

Hudson's Bay Company

Places in this document

Vancouver Island