Confidential

With reference to my Despatch of this date No 44 forwarding
a Copy of a letter from Mr Cooper appealing against instructions
I had issued to him to proceed without delay to take up his
residence in New Westminster, or to resign his appointment under
the Government of British Columbia, such being the conditions
laid

down in your Confidential Despatch of the 5th September
1859, to which I am referred by Your Grace in your Despatch No
1 of the 2nd January last. I would desire to state to Your
Grace more fully than would be convenient in a public Despatch
the particular reasons which induced me to listen to Mr Cooper's
appeal and to permit him to remain at Esquimalt until I could
receive express instructions from Your Grace.

2. In Sir Edward Lytton's Despatch of the 2nd September
1858 No 15 acquainting me of the circumstances under which he
had selected Mr Cooper for the situation of Harbour Master at
Esquimalt Vancouver's Island,

for services in connection with
British Columbia, I am instructed that if I find his
"services at Esquimalt" can be better combined with some other
Office attached to "that Colony" (British Columbia), I am to alter
the "title" of his appointment.

3. It is thus clear that at the period of Mr Cooper's
appointment to Office in British Columbia it was arranged that
he should reside at Esquimalt, Vancouver's Island. There was
no doubt whatever in my mind upon the subject, but if there
had been it would have been removed by the receipt of a
Confidential Despatch from Sir Edward Lytton dated the 24th
March 1859 in which my attention is again called to the
circumstances connected with Mr Cooper's appointment, and I
am informed that the faith of Her Majesty's Government
"

is pledged" to his appointment to an office of the value of
Four Hundred pounds per annum; and that any
"delay or obstruction" to his appointment would be regarded as
owing to the "hostility he may have provoked from the Hudson's Bay Company, and would lead to difficulties and inquiries
therein which it might be desirable to avoid."

4. In the Confidential Despatch of Your Grace of the
5th September, 1859, no mention is made of Mr Cooper,
and I considered that the omission had been intentional when
viewed in connection with the facts above stated. Your Grace's
Despatch of the 2nd January last merely refers me to the
Despatch of the 5th September, but I understand it

as
instructing me to apply the rule therein laid down to Mr
Cooper, & I did not hesitate to do so, but when he appealed
to the circumstances of his appointment, I felt I should
hardly be justified in enforcing the rule
except under as specific instructions as
those requiring me to employ Mr Cooper at Esquimalt.

5. I trust this explanation will be satisfactory to Your
Grace, and I feel sure you will appreciate the delicate position
in which I am placed.

6. I should however be wanting both in my duty to Your
Grace and to myself did I not clearly put before you upon this
occasion the precise facts of the case in connection with Mr
Cooper's

appointment. His appointment so far as regards the
Colony of British Columbia is a complete sinecure. He does
not perform and cannot perform any duties at Esquimalt on
behalf of British Columbia, and there is no office there
whatever in which I could employ him by which I could make
his services available to British Columbia. His education
and training only fit him for the office of Harbour Master,
and, I believe, for that office he is fully competent. Upon
two particular occasions where I have urgently required the
services of such a functionary in British Columbia I have
not hesitated to call upon Mr Cooper to proceed thither to
perform the necessary duty. He has readily carried out my
instructions,

but being absent from the Residence fixed by
his appointment, has increased the expenses attendant on the
Services by charge for the usual personal allowance granted
to Officers when absent on duty from fixed residence, in
addition to the expenses for his passage backwards and forwards,
both of which charges would probably have been saved had he
resided at New Westminster: and again recently when I employed
him in replacing some of the Buoys at the entrance of Fraser
River he was compelled to employ the professional services of
a Pilot to assist him, thereby materially increasing the
expense, he having no local knowledge of the Pilotage, which
he most undoubtedly would have had or should have had, had
he been

resident at New Westminster.

7. At the present moment I really do not think the
services of a Harbour Master are required at New Westminster,
although I have no doubt that before many months pass such a
functionary will be necessary, for the City is making rapid
strides and vessels are commencing to carry goods there direct.
The appointment however having been made I see no good reason
why Mr Cooper should not at once undertake the duties, if
the former arrangement as to his residence at Esquimalt, be
under the altered state of affairs, rescinded by Your Grace.

8. Before concluding I deem it right further to inform
Your Grace

that Mr Cooper has obtained a seat in the
Legislative Assembly of Vancouver's Island; that he has
allied himself with the clique who abuse and villify the
Government, and every officer connected with the Government,
through the Columns of a newspaper which is published at
Victoria, called the "British Colonist" and is edited by an
individual whose real name is William Alexander Smith, but
who styles himself Amor de Cosmos, and for which newspaper Mr
Cooper is actually one of the Sureties; and that he persisently
opposes every measure originated by the Government—apparently
so only for the reason that it is a

Government measure—so
that in point of fact Mr Cooper residing in Vancouver's Island,
and being paid Four Hundred pounds a year from the Colony of
British Columbia for doing nothing for that Colony, has ample
leisure on his hands to devote himself almost entirely to the
work of creating dissension between the Government and the
people of Vancouver's Island.