I have to acknowledge the receipt of Mr Secretary Hawes's
letter of the 4th Instant, stating that it is your Lordships
opinion that there should be introduced into the Grant a formal
condition that the Hudson's Bay Company will be prepared to
sell land to persons desiring to settle on Vancouver's Island on
reasonable terms, and that the whole price received for the land
so disposed of by them together with any receipts on account of
coals or other minerals should, after making a fair deduction
for profit to the Company, be applied in the colonization of
Vancouver's Island, and that Your Lordship would suggest (as you
did when I had the honour of an interview with your Lordship a
few days ago) that a deduction of 10 pper cent from the gross
amount received for land and minerals might be regarded as
affording a fair remuneration to the Company, and further, that a
stipulation to that effect should be inserted in the Grant.
At the interview to which I have already alluded, Your Lordship
did not, as I understood you, consider that an express
stipulation to the above effect in the grant would be necessary,
but that a written acknowledgement of the understanding would be
deemed sufficient. At the same time I beg to assure your
Lordship that I have no objection to the introduction of the
condition into the Grant. I request however that you will send
me a draught of the condition for my consideration and approval.
I have the honour to acquaint your Lordship that on Wednesday last
I laid before a General Court the correspondence on the Grant printed by
order of the House of Commons, and mentioned the additional condition
and that the Court unanimously adopted the following resolution: "That
upon the formal execution of the Grant, a copy of which has now been
read to the Court the Governor and Committee be authorised to accept
the same and to make sub-grants on such terms and conditions as they
think fit." I therefore now only wait till I receive the Grant to
commence operations.