Colonial Despatches

I have the honor to acknowledge your Despatch No. 66 of the 31st of August, forwarding the claims made by Mr. Pemberton the Surveyor General, and by Mr. Pearse his Assistant, to certain portionsof of the Surveyor General's Salary during Mr. Pemberton's last absence in England.

Mr. Pemberton, it seems, has a short time before the present occasion been absent on leave for a period of 15 months. He returned to the Colony in March 1861.

In April 1863 he proposed to Sir James Douglas that he should come home on full pay, but defraying his own expenses, in order to superintend the construction of certain machinery: and the Governor accordingly gave himleave leave on those terms, remarking in his Report to the Secretary of State that Mr. Pemberton had undertaken that his absence from the Colony should not exceed six months.

The Duke of Newcastle in a Despatch to the governor of the 8th of June, acquiesced, but with the remark that Mr. Pemberton could not be allowed to draw full Salary for a greater period than six months. This Despatch of course did not reach the Colony until long after Mr. Pemberton had left it.

Mr. Pemberton afterwards obtained, from the Secretary of State an addition to his leave of three months and then another of two months but I do not find that on either occasion any mention was made in the letters to him of the limitation of his full pay to the original term of six months .

In December 1863 he asked for a further extension. The Duke of Newcastle animadverted on these repeated requests, and upon Mr. Pemberton's having deferred the last until itscarcely scarcely left the Secretary of State an option: but Mr. Pemberton declared that this was not the case, and was allowed at his own wish to withdraw his application. The correspondence is enclosed. His whole leave therefore amounted to eleven months, and as he quitted the Colony on the 2nd or 3rd of April 1863, it expired on the 2nd or 3rd of March 1864. It now appears however, that he did not in fact arrive until the 26th of March, or more than three weeks after the expiration ofhis his leave.

Governor Douglas ordered full salary to be issued to Mr. Pemberton for the first six months of his absence, but afterwards appropriated half to him, and half to his Assistant Mr. Pearse who was doing the duty. Mr. Pearse however wishes to obtain half of the Surveyor General's Salary for the original six months of his absence, and Mr. Pemberton applies for the moiety which has been withheld from him after that period, so far at least, he adds, as the vote ofthe the House will admit, since he has no wish to interfere with any arrangement made for the benefit of Mr. Pearse.

I regret that I cannot instruct you to accede to Mr. Pearse's application. Since Mr. Pemberton was allowed by the Governor to come home for six on full salary, it is impossible to issue half of the Salary of the same office to Mr. Pearse. On the other hand I cannot but entirely approve of Governor Douglas's having afterwards assigned half the Salary to Mr. Pearse. This was conformableto to rule, was equitable in itself, and was undoubtedly the course which the Secretary of State intended to be followed. It is sufficiently apparent from the correspondence that no great value was attached to Mr. Pemberton's presence in England during the completion of a dredging-machine, being only one of the numerous kinds of supplies which the Crown Agents are quite familiar with furnishing to the Colonies. Nevertheless as Mr. Pemberton, in asking for more leave, recapitulated the conditions on whichhe he had come away from the Colony, and as he may plead that he remained in this Country under an erroneous expectation as to salary, derived from the official letters which granted him his extended leave, I should not feel myself at liberty to refuse my sanction to your allowing him all or any part of the second moiety of his half salary for the period for which he has as yet only drawn one moiety in case you have it in your power to do so from any Colonial fundsthat that can lawfully be so appropriated.