Colonial Despatches

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 50 of the 8th of August acquainting me that the Supreme Court of Vancouver Island had refused to grant an injunction, for which application had been made on behalf of your Government, to restrain the Hudson's Bay Company from disposing ofparts parts of the 3084 acres of land claimed by them at Victoria and applying for directions as to any further steps which might be advisable to take in the matter.

I enclose for your information a copy of a letter which I have received on this subject from the Governor of the Hudsons Bay Company together with the copy of one which I have caused to be addressedto to him in answer. The correspondence in May last, which Mr. Berens quotes, was transmitted to you in my despatch No. 61 of the 13th of June last. From the present letters you will perceive that the instructions sent at that time by the Company to their Agent in the Colony were not confined as had been supposed to the Water Frontage then more immediately under discussion, but were intendedto to apply to the whole of 3984 acres of which those frontages form a part, and that in acknowledging the instructions, on the 14th of July last, the Agent accordingly expressed his intention to refrain from selling any further portions of the 3084 acres of Land.

You will probably have ascertained since the date of your despatch the nature of those instructions, whichI I have no doubt will have had the effect of stopping any further sales of the Land on the part of the Company's Representatives in Vancouver Island.