No. 10
               
            
            
               
               
                     Downing Street
                     
                  
               21 February 1860
               
               Sir,
                
            
            
               I have to acknowledge your despatch No. 64 of the 
17th of
                  December last, informing me that under the legal difficulty which at
               present impedes the grant of land in 
Vancouver Island you had authorized
               the Colonial Surveyor as a provisional arrangement to permit settlers to
               occupy certain lands situate 
within
within the surveyed districts of 
Vancouver
                  Island, with a preemptive right.
               
               I approve of this measure as the best course which was probably
               open to you under the circumstances.
               
            
            
               At the same time I have to inform you that I am in correspondence
               with the Hudsons Bay Company as to the best mode of terminating the
               uncertainty which now prevails, by obtaining from them authority to
               enable you to sell the waste 
land
land, under a provisional arrangement as
               to the proceeds between the Crown and the Company, until the claims of
               the latter are fully adjusted and the repurchase effected.
               
               And I hope to be enabled very soon to give you instructions on
               this head.