No. 44

I have had the honor to receive Your Lordship's Despatch No 9
of the 15th February in which you grant me leave of absence
after the termination of the Legislative Session for about two
months. I am grateful to Your Lordship for acceding to my
request; but I regret to say that I have not sufficiently
recovered from the effects of the injury which I sustained in
November to be able to undertake so long a journey or to leave
Victoria so soon as I had intended. I shall not therefore use
Your Lordship's permission to its full extent; though I shall
probably avail myself of it for the purpose of a short visit to
San Francisco in June. But in that case I shall not be absent
longer than three weeks or a month.