Colonial Despatches

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of Mr Fortescue's Despatch No 57 of the 27th of October, on the subject of twoletters letters addressed to me by Colonel Moody, dated respectively the 24th and 22nd of August last; the first relative to my having instructed the Magistrate of the Hope District "to select the site," and lay "out a Town" on the Shimilkomeen River; and the second respecting the provision made in the Estimates of 1860-61 to meet the expenses of the Royal Engineers inBritish British Columbia.

2. Those letters having been received on the eve of my departure on a protracted journey into British Columbia, where I had an opportunity of conferring personally with Colonel Moody, and there being really no point at issue with him, and the subject referred to in his letter of the 24th of August never having beensince since brought under my notice, I have inadvertently neglected to forward those letters to Your Grace.

3. I now however, do myself the honour of transmitting them, with some necessary remarks. I will not attempt to explain Colonel Moody's object in addressing to me his letter of the 24th of August, but I beg to assure Your Gracethat that so far from restricting the exercise of his legitimate powers, I have used every effort to increase and promote the efficiency of the Department of Lands and Works; and I have no doubt Colonel Moody will be the first to admit that he has personally met with every consideration and attention from me; and that our intercourse, both public and private,has has been uniformly cordial, confidential, and friendly. So far from assuming any vexatious controul over the subordinate departments of Government, I have in every instance allowed the freest scope for the exercise of talent and experience, by throwing the whole labour and responsibility entirely upon the Officers conducting the departments; using onlya a necessary discretion in regulating details, restricting expenditures, rejecting the wild and theoretical in principle, and striving to establish a thoroughly sound and practical system.

4. In a Colony so extensive, inaccessible, and of whose physical character so little was known as British Columbia, the Lands and WorksDepartment Department had to cope with peculiar difficulties that would have taken years to surmount, and the energies of the department might have been exerted to little purpose had it been cast upon the wilderness and left to take its course without experienced direction. The mountain passes and the general character of the ground had tobe be examined before roads could be laid out, and the country opened for travel; a service which alone cost a vast amount of labour.

5. To save time and expense, all the preliminary explorations on the great thoroughfares leading from Douglas, Hope, and Yale, into the country beyond the mountains, were executed by the DistrictOfficers Officers, assisted by Indian Guides, and white men inured to hardship and privation: and when by that means the shortest and most accessible routes had been unmistakeably established, the Commissioner of Lands and Works was authorised to complete the surveys, to lay out the roads, fix the grades, to contract for the work, and the necessary fundswere were placed at his disposal, in order that the whole execution should be left entirely in his hands.

6. The Town Sites in British Columbia, New Westminster excepted, which was a deliberate selection, were all determined by public choice, influenced by local circumstances of necessity or convenience; for example—Hope, Yaleand and Douglas, from being at the head of Steam Navigation in their respective Districts, and Cayoosh and Lytton convenient termini in the route by land: the plans and laying out of those Towns, however, devolved in every instance on the Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works.

7. The circumstance which gave rise to ColonelMoody's Moody's letter of the 24th of August was as follows: owing to rumoured discoveries of Gold at Shimilkomeen and Rock Creek, I directed Mr O'Reilly, the Magistrate of Hope, to visit those places for information; and as the public exigencies absolutely required that a Town Site should be selected without delay, in the country beyond the Hope mountains, for theStorage storage of supplies to meet the wants of the Shimilkomeen and Rock Creek Districts, and as all the Officers of the Royal Engineers were otherwise employed, and Colonel Moody himself supposed to be absent on duty, Mr O'Reilly was directed to make the choice.

I, at the same time, addressed a note to Colonel Moody, of which a Copy isenclosed enclosed, repeating the instructions to Mr O'Reilly, which were—to select a Town Site—and nothing more; not, as is stated in Colonel Moody's letter, "to lay out a Town", an expression, which as Your Grace will observe, does not occur in my letter; and that such was not my intention, may be further inferredfrom from the fact that it would have been imposing on the Magistrate a task which neither his previous experience, nor the means at his disposal, qualified him to perform. When addressing that letter to Colonel Moody, I was under the impression that he was engaged in examining the Roads, then in course of formation, beyond Yale: it appearshowever, however, that he received my letter, and was present at Hope, when Mr O'Reilly left that place. As Colonel Moody did take those serious views of Mr O'Reilly's mission, represented in his letter, which though sound in principle, I think totally inapplicable to the case of a mere commercial town, whose position must after all be determined bypublic public convenience, as people are not generally disposed to perch their houses upon bleak mountains or inaccessible cliffs, simply because they happen to be good military positions, his proper course, instead of referring to me for orders, which could not possibly reach him in time to be of any use, was to have proceeded at onceto to Shimilkomeen, which is only 70 miles distant from Hope, and done whatever appeared to him necessary in the case.

As Colonel Moody exercises the absolute controul in his own department, and may in the course of duty visit at his own discretion any part of the Colony he pleases, I must confess my inabilityto to explain why he departed from the rule on that occasion; but of this I can assure Your Grace, that there was no cause for assuming that my approval would have been withheld.

8. With reference to the remaining letter of Colonel Moody, No 438, dated Hope 22nd August 1860, I have merelyto to remark that it was called forth by my communicating to him the purport of the information received from Your Grace with respect to the provision made in the Estimates for the Year 1860-61, to meet the expenditure of the Royal Engineers in British Columbia; but in doing so, I had no intention for one momentof of creating the impression that any breach of the terms and privileges guaranteed to his Command by Her Majesty's Government, was either contemplated or intended; and having afterwards personally explained this to Colonel Moody, I considered he was satisfied, and that there was no further occasion to take notice of thematter matter.