Colonial Despatches

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 18 of the 19th of February last transmitting an estimate of the expenditure necessary for the maintenance of the Force of Royal Engineers in British Columbia for the year 1861 amounting to £16,750.

I regret that I am unableto to comply with the earnest wish expressed in your despatch that the Colony may be relieved of the whole of this charge.

It is unnecessary that I should remind you of the motives which induced my Predecessor in sending a Military force to British Columbia to select for the purpose men of the Royal Engineers, nor of the expectation which he entertained that the Services which they would render to the Colony in Civil capacities would afford anequivalent equivalent for the cost of the expedition. Hitherto it has not been possible to carry into effect the intention then announced to you of charging the expenditure of the Force, with the exception of their Regimental Pay, to the Revenues of the Colony, and notwithstanding the large increase in those Revenues which is exhibited by the financial Statements recently received from you, I am reluctant to diminish materially the surplus whichafter after providing for the ordinary Civil Government is available for the execution of Public Works essential in the present stage of the Colony to the development of its resources. Provision has therefore been made in the vote for British Columbia for the present year for the Colonial Pay of the Royal Engineers, and an item of £12,000 which I find from the enclosure of yourdespatch despatch to be even somewhat in excess of the actual pay itself, has been inserted in the estimate on this account. But the further expenditure which you have reported must be defrayed by the Colony, and I am willing to believe that for the sum of £4550 which will thus remain chargeable to it's Revenues, British Columbia will obtain anample ample equivalent in the experience and professional skills of the Royal Engineers.