Colonial Despatches
The colonial despatches of Vancouver Island and British Columbia 1846-1871
Public Offices document
Hammond, Edmund to Merivale, Herman 15 March 1856, CO 305:7, no. 2435, 179.
Abstract
Public Offices document.
Minutes (2), Enclosures (untranscribed) (1).
Hammond gives Merivale a copy of a letter from the HBC regarding a correspondence between them and the Colonial
Office regarding the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 between Great Britain and the United
States.
The minutes question whether or not the Colonial Office should be privy to correspondence
between the HBC and the Foreign Office concerning the Reciprocity Treaty.
Enclosed is a letter from the HBC to Hammond that supports the inclusion of Vancouver Island in the Reciprocity Treaty.
Hammond to Merivale (Permanent Under-Secretary)
Foreign Office
March 15, 1856
Sir,
With reference to the question now before the Secretary of State
for the Colonial Department of extending to the Colony of Vancouver's Island the provisions of the Treaty between this Country and the United
States of America of the 5th of June 1854 I am directed by the Earl of Clarendon to transmit to you, to be laid before Mr Secretary Labouchere, a Copy of a Letter from the Hudson's Bay
Bay Company
communicating to His Lordship a Correspondence which has taken place
with your Department upon this subject, with further observations
relative thereto.
Bay Company
communicating to His Lordship a Correspondence which has taken place
with your Department upon this subject, with further observations
relative thereto.
H. Merivale Esqre
Minutes by CO staff
I do not see why—this letter from the HBC to the Foreign office
has crossed ours of 13 March referring on the question to the H.B.C. so that
it appears there has been direct communication between Ld
Clarendon & the Company about this treaty of which we were unaware. The
circumstance illustrates the inconvenience of the practice, on which I
had already remarked.
has crossed ours of 13 March referring on the question to the H.B.C. so that
it appears there has been direct communication between Ld
Clarendon & the Company about this treaty of which we were unaware. The
circumstance illustrates the inconvenience of the practice, on which I
had already remarked.
Documents enclosed with the main document (not transcribed)
1. John Shepherd, Hudson's Bay Company, to Hammond, 13 March 1856, supporting the extention of the Reciprocity Treaty to Vancouver Island
but "restricting the liberty of fishing solely to sea fishery, and
reserving the right of salmon, and other fisheries in rivers and the
mouths of rivers. . . ."