Colonial Despatches

In answer to your letter of the 22nd Ult. relating to the Hudsons Bay Company, I am directed by the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury to acquaint you for the information of the Duke of Newcastle that My Lords have wished to allow to that Company all that they could fairly claim on the resumption by the Crown of Vancouvers Island. They claimed an unexpectedlylarge large balance of £53,569 afterwards reduced by the withdrawal of an Item of £15,113 to £38,456 for which they proposed that they should be paid, as a compensation, a sum of £35,000.

They were however unable to satisfy Mr Andoe and Mr Murdoch on behalf of the Government, that more than £29,000 ought to be paid to them, and even that sum included some Items which Mr Andoe passed, not as a matter of account, but by way of concession only, and on the ground of Public convenience, and the Interests of the Colony.

My Lords therefore considered that they were acting in a liberal spirit towards the Company when they offered a sum of £30,000 in full satisfaction of their claims, and they had trusted that the Company would have accepted that sum without further reference to the particular claim, which they had not fully succeeded in establishing, forthe the passage and maintenance of Settlers.

In the claim, as it was first made by the Company, they assumed that of Seven Hundred Settlers expected to be sent out to the Colony, one half would be taken up by the Puget's Sound Company, and they charged the Government, in consequence, with Passage-Money for Three Hundred and Fifty Settlers amounting, at £23 each Settler, to £8050, and with £17,500 for Maintenance at the rate of £50 a head.It It then appeared, as stated in a letter from the Governor of the Company, that only about Six Hundred and Thirty went out, that the sum spent in Maintenance was very much under £17,500, and that the cost of Maintenance was only £23 for each Settler instead of £50.

That took off £9,450 from the original claim; but, on the other hand, it was said that the Puget's Company took only Eighty, and that the 550 otherswere were all chargeable to the Colony: and, the cost of the additional 200 Settlers for Passage-Money and Maintenance being about £9200—the Claim as amended came out nearly the same in amount as before.

My Lords concurred with Mr Andoe and Mr Murdoch in not thinking the explanation satisfactory either generally or as to why the first statement of numbers should have been erroneous, and they considered that the Government was entitled to takethat that number as the basis of the calculations. They think it, however far better that the terms for the reconveyance of Vancouver's Island should, if possible, be made acceptable to both parties than that recourse should be had to Legal Proceedings—and £5,000 being the difference between the sums asked by and offered to the Company—they would not, desirous as they are of assisting His Gracein in coming to an amicable settlement with the Company, object to give half that difference and thus to raise the balance payable to the Company to a sum of £32,500.