I have to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch No. 40 of the
               
22nd December and to express the regret with which I learnt that the
               late 
Mr. Seymour had withheld from the Legislative Council the 
Duke of
                  Buckingham's
Despatch
 Despatch No. 40 of the 
26th June 1868 respecting the then
               unsatisfactory condition of the Courts of Justice in 
British Columbia.
               
               I am very glad to have had it in my power to remove all the
               difficulties which were then in existence by the promotion of 
Mr.
                  Needham to 
Trinidad and I have to request you, if you have not already
               done so, to lay before the Council now the correspondence which should
               have been presented to them immediately
after
 after its receipt by the late
               Governor.