Colonial Despatches

I have had under my consideration your Despatch No. 64 of the 31st of August and the correspondence by which it was accompanied relative to the claim of the late Attorney General to certain fees which you required him to refund into the Colonial Treasury.

This correspondence raises the general question whether the Attorney General of Vancouver Island is entitled to receive fees for work done for the Colonial Government.

Although I informed you in my Despatch No. 19 of the 11th of July that a Colonial Attorney General is generally speaking not at liberty to charge the Government for his services, yet in the case of Vancouver Island, as the Salary assigned to that Office is only Three hundred pounds [£300] a year, and as the Government work seems to be of some considerable amount, Ido do not think that he can be required to do it for that Salary.

I therefore consider that the Attorney General must under present circumstances be paid for his services and that in the absence of any agreement to the contrary he is entitled to the usual fees. If therefore in the present instance it is true in point of fact that Mr. Cary's charges were the usual charges in such cases, which there can be no difficulty in ascertaining in the Colony, I am of opinion that he should receive them.

If on the contrary theassessment assessment of the taxing master is to be considered as a decision of this point (i.e. if it is a taxation not as between suitors, but as between Attorney and Client) then the Government should retain the money which Mr. Cary has refunded.