No. 55

With reference to Your Grace's Despatch "Separate" of the
15th June I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Her Majesty's Order in Council of the 11th June 1863,
authorizing me to establish a Legislative Council in British
Columbia composed of Fifteen Members (15 members), to be nominated by the
Governor, in order to prepare the way for giving the inhabitants
of the Colony a due influence in its Government. I have also
to acknowledge Your Grace's instructions conveyed in the same
Despatch directing me, at once to proclaim a Law enabling
Her Majesty to allot certain specified Salaries to the
principal Government Officers of British Columbia, and to
give effect to the Order in Council in such a manner that
at least one third of the Councillors shall be persons
recognized by the Residents in the Colony as representing
their feelings and interests, in order that a system of
virtual though imperfect representation may be at once
introduced that will enable Her Majesty's Government to
ascertain the character and wants of the community, with
a view to the more formal and complete establishment of a
representative system when circumstances admit of it.

2. Your Grace also announces your intention of holding
the proceeds of the Crown lands at the disposal of the
Legislative Council, and that the Council will be at liberty
to pass Laws for the regulation and management of those
sources of Revenue subject to Her Majesty's approval, and to questions
which may remain to be settled with the Hudson Bay Company.

3. Having in previous Despatches laid before Your Grace
my views of the policy which ought to be pursued, and of the
form of Government suited to the actual circumstances of
British Columbia, I will on this occasion only express my
conviction of the wisdom of the plan of Government now proposed
and Your Grace may rest assured that I shall not fail to carry
it into effect in accordance with Your Grace's instructions,
and in such a manner as will render it at once useful and
generally acceptable to the inhabitants of the Colony.