Colonial Despatches

I have to acknowledge your [Vancouver Island] despatches No 39 of the 9th September and No 3 of the 12th October last, 1 on the state of affairs in British Columbia, the latter containing a detailed report of your observations during a visit to the Frazers River territory from which you had then just returned.

I can but repeat (and I do so with great pleasure) the testimony which I have already borne to your energy and promptitude amidst circumstances so extraordinary as those in which you found yourself placed, and to assure you of the sense entertained by Her Majesty's Government, of the capacities you have thus signally evinced. The information which your despatch conveys is likewise of the most valuable kind.

I await with much interest the reports which farther acquaintance with the resources of the Colony will enable you to make of the probable revenue to be derived from it in the course of the following year. I was fully prepared for the accounts which your despatches convey of the high price of all articles of necessity and convenience, and the dearness of transport; and I recognize (as I have done on another occasion) your equitable right to a considerable advance of Salaryas as soon as the revenue under sagacious management and thoughtful economy warrants that expenditure on official incomes which would at present be wholly inadmissible. But I have dealt with the subject of the financial position of the Colony in another despatch of this days date.

All doubt as to your power to impose a duty on imported articles will now have been removed, since the general words of the recent Act ofParliament Parliament and Charter of the Colony, have plainly invested you with this as well as other legislative authority. The amount which it may be desirable to impose must be mainly regulated, in the first instance, by your own judgment and experience, tho' I will own that at this distance it appears to me that ad valorem duty of 10 per Cent, is somewhat too high and may defeat its own object. I desire not, however, in hazarding this opinion to shackle thejudgment judgment of a Governor who has shewn himself so able. I cannot conclude without expressing my cordial approval of the manner in which you appear to have carried out the two objects which at the onset of such a Colony should be steadfastly borne in view—vizt a liberal and kindly welcome to all honest Immigrants, and the unquestionable supremacy of British Sovereignty and Law.