Colonial Despatches

I beg to acknowledge the receipt of a letter from the Colonial office dated 5 August 1852, to the effect that the present Governor of Vancouvers Island has stated that I left no copies of my official correspondence with the Secretary of State, among the public documents transferred to him on my retirement from the government, and further inferring that I have withdrawn such copies, desiring me to send them to the Colonial Office that they may be forwarded to Vancouvers Island.

In replyIn reply, I beg to inform you that the copies or originals of my whole official correspondence as Governor of Vancouvers [Island] were left by me among the documents which on my retirement I transferred to the council, of which Mr Douglas was the Senior Member, if now missing, they must have been abstracted since that transfer. So far from being able to furnish fresh copies of that correspondence, I applied to Lord Grey in a personal interview I had with his Lordship on my return from Vancouvers Island for leave to copy parts of the correspondence, my own papers having been destroyed by the loss of a boat in crossing the Isthmus of Panama on my journey home, his Lordship gave me a conditional permission, but I did not avail myself of it, as circumstances did not render it necessary.