No. 26

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch
of the 27th February last No 104, acquainting me that it is
not possible for your Grace to comply with my solicitation for a
continuance during the year 1862-63 of the provision from Imperial
Funds necessary for the maintenance of the Detachment of Royal
Engineers serving in British Columbia, but that on the contrary,
one moiety of the cost, viz. £11,000, must be defrayed from
Colonial Funds, and calling my attention to the belief existing
in the Financial Departments of the Government, that I have drawn
upon Her Majesty's Government in excess of the sums voted by
Parliament for the service of the Colony.

2. The circumstance of so large a sum as £11,000 of the
Colonial Revenue being diverted from the pressing object of
opening the communications of the country towards the maintenance
of the Royal Engineers, is so intimately connected with the present
critical state of the Colony, that it is fully discussed in another
despatch No 25 of this date, and it is therefore unnecessary for
me to enter into any repetition here, further than to observe,
that although your Grace's instructions shall be implicitly followed,
it is my positive duty plainly to represent to your Grace the
sacrifice of Colonial and necessarily of Imperial interests that such a course must involve, unless immediate measures be instituted
for the adoption of some expedient whereby the works I have set on
foot, as fully detailed in my despatch of 15th April last,
Separate, may be vigorously prosecuted, works that are no less
essential to the advancement and prosperity of the Colony than to
its peace, order, and good Government, works that cannot be delayed,
not alone on account of the sacrifice of interests which would be
involved but also on account of the consequences which would follow their abandonment, consequences inevitable from the congregation of
starving multitudes attributing their distresses not to their own
precipitancy and improvidence, but to the inaction and indifference
of the Government.

3. I have in previous despatches attempted so fully to place
before Your Grace the exact condition of the Country. I have reported
at such length all the information of importance in connection with the extraordinary discoveries of gold in the Carribou District; I
have represented to your Grace the consequent certainty of an immense
influx in the spring, of a population not altogether the most desirable,
drawn as it principally would be from the dissatisfied of California,
and of the vital necessity which exists for pouring food into the
Country in adequate quantities, and at lessened prices, that I feel
loth to trespass upon your Grace's time by any recapitulation of these
matters, and will only here state that the rush of people to the mines
has commenced, that altho' the season has not yet opened, such
impatience is manifested, such improvidence is exhibited, that
provisions destined for the Upper country are actually consumed on
the road before one third of the journey has been accomplished, and
that the stream of immigration is by latest reports actually in
advance of the means of subsistence. Your Grace cannot I am certain
but feel for me in the harassing and perplexing position in which I
now find myself placed, impelled to action and action of a
vigorous and indispensable character, crippled in resources and
involved in a heavy liability. To abandon that action, to break
the faith of my Government, and to leave the solution of difficulties
to the category of chances, would be a course which is almost forced
upon me; but forseeing as I do the disaster and ruin that would
follow, it is a course which I dare not take, a course which Her Majesty's Government could not approve when its fruits became
developed, and however much I may have failed in placing before
Her Majesty's Government in a sufficiently clear light the
circumstances and condition of the country, the results of any
stoppage in the work of opening roads to the Carribou District
are to me so apparent and so appalling that I am satisfied Her
Majesty's Government would consider me unworthy the sacred trust
I hold, did I for one moment stay my hand with the conviction upon me of thereby bringing such results on the Country.

4. Although the sum of £11,000 is but about an eighth part
of the expenditure demanded by the Works in question, yet your Grace
can readily understand what a serious matter it will be to part even
with that eighth, and that if it be parted with, other means must
be instituted to replace it. If Her Majesty's Government will not
grant this money for this one year longer, I earnestly trust on
behalf of the Colony and the serious interests at stake, that Your
Grace will be pleased to obtain an arrangement whereby the Lords
of the Treasury will advance the sum as a loan, and I will make
provision in the Colonial Estimates for the ensuing year for the
repayment of such loan together with any interest that their
Lordships may think fit to settle.

5. With respect to your Grace's observations as to my overdrawing upon the Imperial Treasury and more especially with regard to the
remarks contained in the Postscript of your Grace's despatch, I am
utterly at a loss to comprehend the position of affairs therein
represented, and I can in no way reconcile it from any data I can
obtain here. I have been under the firm impression all along that
my Drafts upon the Imperial Treasury were strictly confined to the
sums voted by Parliament. The only point upon which I had any doubt
was the charge of the £6900 sent out in coin, and this doubt was created in my mind from the fact of noticing in the Printed Estimates
for the year ending 31st March 1862 Page 4, that on the 31st
December 1860 there was a Balance in the Exchequer of £10,000 in
favor of British Columbia on the vote 1860-61, while the £6900 of
coin was shipped from the Treasury in October 1860.
*

6. I am not in possession of all the data necessary to form a
precise account, but I have collated such as I can collect and
roughly arrive at the following result:

Voted by Parliament for service

of British Columbia 1859-60..............£42,998

Voted by Parliament for service

of British Columbia 1860-61.............. 30,000

Voted by Parliament for service

of British Columbia 1861-62.............. 17,800

Total..... £90,798

Amount drawn by Bills during 1859..........£39,320

Amount drawn by Bills during 1860......... 20,706

Amount drawn by Bills during 1861......... 9,000

Governors Salary........................... 5,400

Paid in England for stores &c

for Royal Engineers, say................ 12,000

Colonel Moody salary as Chief Commissioner

of Lands and Works.............  3,600

Total..... £90,026

722

Silver coin sent out.......................... 6,900

Balance against the Colony on 31st March 1862...... 6,128

How the balance against the Colony as appearing from the
Treasury Returns should be £20,000 in excess of this sum I
am quite at a loss to explain.

7. In conclusion I deem it right again to repeat, that the
application of Imperial Funds within the Colony has been strictly
confined to the expenditure of the Royal Engineers, an expenditure
which having been arranged by Her Majesty's Government with the
Colonel Commanding and mainly left to his discretion, is almost entirely beyond my control. I will bring this subject again
before your Grace in a subsequent despatch, when I have obtained
from Colonel Moody certain items of information and certain
Returns for which I have called.