Gosset to Lytton

1. Obliged, as I beg you to believe me, for your
Gosset, Capt. William D.insufficiency of salary
communication of yesterday's
date,

I must trespass further on your courtesy, by requesting that the
following remarks may be filed with the previous correspondence for the
purpose, (reasonable I trust to demonstrate) of possible reference a
future day. Were my income derivable from Official salary alone it would
be out of my power to accept the offer you have been kind enough to make
me, of transfer to an appointment in British Columbia on a salary of 500£
a year. Such a salary, in a country where by last accounts the wages of
a couple of servants would absorb 300£ of it, being apparently
insufficient to procure an officer more than the necessities of life,
certainly too limited to afford him the power of keeping up that ordinary
appearance of respectability, the exactions of society almost
render it one duty of an officer to maintain.

Means from other sources however, enable me to adhere to the
resolution, (formed when I was first consulted by Colonel Dawson on the
Dawson, Col. Robert K.
question of a Government for British Columbia) of placing my services
"unreservedly" at the disposal of Her Majesty's Government, with a firm
trust, that the matter of salary may be reconsidered so soon as the
condition of the New Colony may warrant attention to such subjects.
Admitting the necessity for extreme caution in all financial arrangements
for a Colony about to commence existence with a debt to the Imperial
Government, the Colonial Legislature would doubtless desire to liquidate
without delay; yet, as the prime ratio established between salaries, may,
on any general revision, influence future propositions, I deem it justice
to myself to express, (in no captious spirit, nor as scrutinizing your
award, but to place it on record now, lest present silence should be
misinterpreted a future day) my inability to recognize in 500£ a year,
that that remuneration, which a comparison of the duties and pecuniary
responsibilities attaching to each of the various offices in
the New Settlement, would have led me suppose, might have been
relatively awarded to the Chief Officer of Finance.

2. Adverting to the allocation of those other duties, named in your
letter under acknowledgement, I beg to repeat my readiness to give them
my best attention, and to add, that should economical considerations
suggest the idea of placing the inter-colonial audit, in the first
instance, under the same direction as the Treasury, I will be happy to
take the charge and responsibility of arranging the combination so that
it shall work satisfactorily.

3. To your expectations as regards my departure by Novr
Gosset, Capt. William D.departure for BC
11th, I have I hope responded as you will approve, by this day
securing accommodation in a vessel advertized to sail on the 30th
of this month.