No. 70, Financial

In accordance with the instructions contained in your Despatch No 27
dated 1st August 1864, I have now the honor to transmit statements
of the Receipt and Expenditure of the Crown fund of this Colony for
the years 1859, 1860, 1861, 1862, 1863 and 1864, and likewise
Estimates of probable Receipt and Expenditure of that fund for the
year 1865.

I delayed making this statement while a probability existed of the
terms offered by the Duke of Newcastle being accepted, and further
delay was caused by the difficulty of obtaining leave for Mr Ker
(now Auditor in British Columbia) to complete the Audit.

The estimated "Crown Revenue of Vancouver Island for the year 1865"
is very much less than that which is derivable from that source under
proper management, which cannot be adopted till the property coming
to the Crown is formally conveyed by the Hudson's Bay Company, or in
other words till the "Crown Lands question" is settled.

In the Estimate of Revenue the sum of $26,550.70 described as the
balance due by the Colony on the 1st January 1865 corresponds to the
sum of $34,066 (as reduced by audit) treated of in my Despatch No 57
dated 18th July 1865 and which the Legislative Assembly refused to
vote.

With a view to obviate any misapprehension with regard to the first
item of Expenditure for 1864, namely, "salary of Sir James Douglas
KCB, late Governor, $13,611.27" I enclose the copy of a letter from
the Colonial Treasurer dated 29th December 1864 from which it will
appear that this sum is for "arrears of salary" undrawn at the time
it became due.