Colonial Despatches

Captain Verney has sent me a copy of a letter which he addressed to Your Grace on the 7th May commenting on a certain petition which had then been recently presentedto to you. I can obtain no information respecting this petition. There is, I am told, a copy or copies in Victoria but no Officer of the Government is allowed to become acquainted with its contents. I have therefore literally only Captain Verney's letter of the 7th May to depend on. I gather from it that the petition "indicates strong personal feeling" against me, and that it is sought to induce Your Grace to declareVictoria Victoria to be the Capital of the Colony without a reference to me.

2. Perhaps I have a right to feel aggrieved by this "strong personal feeling" being thus exhibited behind my back, and of my being kept uninformed of the statements of the petitioners. Under the peculiar circustances of the case I do not. (I wish the question of the seat of Government to be set at rest, and if Your Grace can see Your way to establish it at Victoriawithout without injustice to those who have purchased land at New Westminster on the faith of the proclamations I enclose, I shall offer not one word of remonstrance. Either town will suit me equally well as a place of residence and in the present financial condition of the Colony I shall be very glad to have but one house to keep up. Victoria has made the most progress, consequently perhaps, under existing depressionit it would be well to concentrate our waning resources upon the spot where the greatest outlay has been made. I will not allow that Victoria possesses any natural advantages over New Westminster, but it is older and more developed as a town.)

3. As to the "strong personal feeling" against me, I must bear it. From the very moment that it became clear that I, as Governor of British Columbia proper, was determined to consult theinterests interests of the Colony alone, over which I ruled, I have met with the unscrupulous hostility of the Victoria politicians. It was not to be allowed that British Columbia would stand alone and be independent. A sham had been carried on under which the real capital of British Columbia was outside its limits. The inhabitants of the Island commercially levied a toll on everything consumed on the mainland and evaded allindirect indirect taxation. British Columbia was practically a dependency of Victoria, its gold field, fishing and hunting ground. If the mines proved rich, Victoria prospered. It was well managed by the Hudson Bay Company and others that but little share of the Gold of Cariboo should deposit in New Westminster. The empty Capital could not boast the presence of a Government, and the absentee administrators enriched Victoriawith with their Salaries paid from the taxes of the Mainland. The course adopted in the first instance by the Hudson's Bay Company and then by the Government was followed by the Bank of British Columbia, whose chief office was outside the Colony whose name it bore. The Bishop of British Columbia did not reside in the Colony of British Columbia. Funds received from England were invested in the Island. Her Majesty's ships seldomleft left their moorings in Esquimalt for the mainland, and thus Victoria, by the assistance of the Government, Church, Navy, Banks and a great commercial Company was raised to a place of considerable importance. But its prosperity was artificial, to a certain extent, and had no solid foundation. Before the separation of the Colonies the people of England were beginning to see through the hoaxes which had been periodically practised upon them in thecolumns columns of a leading journal and the retrogression of Victoria had already begun. The rate became greatly accelerated within a few weeks of the Establishment of a separate Government at New Westminster. I presided over that Government, which seemed at the outset to deprive Victoria of all confidence in herself, and I have scarcely a right to complain if I have ever since my arrival been assailed with all the invective which ingenuitysharpened sharpened by adversity could supply to the people & press of Victoria. I was therefore fully prepared for the indication of "strong personal feeling" in the secret petition. Yet, "personal feeling" is not quite the right expression. It is more my policy than myself that Victoria detests. Were I sufficiently unscrupulous I know the way to win her favor tomorrow.

4. In a consideration of the question as to the seatof of Government Your Grace will have on the one hand the expectations legitimately formed by the people of New Westminster. In my opinion the most respectable, manly and enterprising little community with which I have ever been acquainted. On the other, you will have probable expediency and will gratify for a time a restless, half alive population, ill at ease with itself. If Victoria be selected as the Capital you will havebut but the expiring reproaches of New Westminster. If the latter city be chosen the systematic agitation to which Your Grace is accustomed will continue to prevail. The Hudson Bay Company, the Bank of British Columbia, that of British North America and possibly even the Church will be arrayed in more or less open opposition to the Government. Victoria will endure no lukewarm policy. No abstract justice to the Colony as a whole willsupport support her artificial fabric. A man must be entirely for Victoria or else must be against her. I am impartial. Hence the strong feeling of opposition to which Captain Verney refers.

5. I enclose the Message I addressed to the Legislative Council on the Subject. The last paragraph simply means that I will not be controlled in my policy by meetings held in the Victoria Theatre.