No. 47

I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of Your Grace's Despatch No
32 of the 30h July 1863 referring to the circumstance of one Thomas
Burke, a distressed British Subject, having been improperly provided
with a passage from Vancouver's Island to Queenstown at the public
expense under an Order issued by a Justice of the Peace.

2. Mr Stamp, the Justice of the Peace referred to was at the time
of the occurrence the Superintendent of the Spar and Lumber
Establishment at Alberni on the South west Coast of Vancouver's
Island. He was constituted a Justice of the Peace from the necessity
which existed for having some local authority in an isolated and
distant settlement capable of preserving Law & order, not only
amongst the Settlers, but also amongst the Crews of Ships arriving
there for Cargoes, and who otherwise might have availed themselves of
the opportunity offered for desertion. Mr Stamp has since left, and
has recently returned to England, and I am therefore unable to call
upon him for an explanation, but I doubt not he acted under a
mistaken idea that the 17 and 18 Vic Cap. 104 sec. 211 applied to all
British Subjects.

3. I have cautioned Mr Stamps Successor in respect of this matter,
and I will not fail to observe that persons in the Colonies are not
entitled to passage to England at the Expense of the British Government.