Colonial Despatches
The colonial despatches of Vancouver Island and British Columbia 1846-1871
Correspondence (private letter)
Grant, Captain John Marshall to Lytton, Sir Edward George Earle Bulwer 15 October 1858, CO 60:3, no. 11893, 133.
Abstract
Grant, Captain John Marshall to Lytton, Sir Edward George Earle Bulwer 15 October 1858, CO 60:3, no. 11893, 133.
Correspondence (private letter).
Minutes (2).
Grant to Lytton
I do myself the honor to inform you that the Dett of R. Engineers
under my command arrived at Colon on the morning of the 9th inst and
through the courtesy & assistance of Captn Hole of the R.M.S.P.
Medway
1
and the agents of the Co Messrs
Hurtado,
2
was enabled to cross the Isthmus with the men & stores by the 8 1/2
am train.
We reached Panama at 1 o'c, when I immediately called
upon the acting Consul Mr Bidwell and arranged withhim
him for
quartering the men for the night & with his assistance & through
the prompt attention of Commander Priser of H.M.S.
Alert
3
I was enabled to embark them on board his ship at 8 a.m. the following
morning.
him for
quartering the men for the night & with his assistance & through
the prompt attention of Commander Priser of H.M.S.
Alert
3
I was enabled to embark them on board his ship at 8 a.m. the following
morning.
The American Mail Steamer is not expected to leave for San
Francisco before the 17th and I am thankful that during this
period the men will be under proper restraint & kept out of harm's way.
I beg to express my sense of the great zeal and assistance
afforded by the gentlemen I have named, and which enabled me
without trouble to take measures to save expense and ensure as
far as possible the health & discipline of the men.
The Right Honble
The Secretary of State for the Colonies
The Secretary of State for the Colonies
Footnotes
- The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company's Medway was a wooden paddle ship, 1,895 tons (gross). Source?
- Hurtado y Hermanos [brothers?] were the largest mule owners on the Isthmus and in 1853 entered into a contract with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company to convey passengers and baggage through to the Pacific side at a fixed rate. Kemble, The Panama Route 1848-1869, p. 173. Cf. Parsons to Lytton, 27 September 1858, 11022, CO 60/3, p. 496. Bio Dir??
- The HMS Alert was built in 1856 at Pembroke for the Royal Navy. It had nineteen guns and was powered with an auxiliary engine installed horizontally below the water line, an unusual construction feature designed to protect the ship from damage by ice. In 1858 it travelled around Cape Horn to Esquimalt and remained at this station surveying the northern coast and Vancouver Island from 1865 to 1869. The Alert was later used in the British Polar Expedition in 1875 and travelled to the Arctic and to Hudson Bay.