Peel to Rogers (Permanent Under-Secretary)

I am directed by the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's
Treasury to transmit herewith a letter from the Board of Trade
and its enclosures being a Petition for the grant of a
Supplemental Charter to the Bank of British Columbia, and I am to
request that My Lords may be favored with Mr Secretary
Cardwell's opinion thereon.

I am to state that under the circumstances set forth
My Lords see no objection to the grant of the proposed
supplemental Charter and they will be prepared with Mr
Cardwell's concurrence to intimate their opinion to that
effect to the Board of Trade. Mr Cardwell will observe
that the accompanying statement in support of the Petition
of the Bank appears to contemplate the extension of its
business to Canada and other British Colonies generally in
North America. The draft Charter itself, however, would
give the Bank the power of establishing branches only in
places in North America to the westward of 95o longitude
and My Lords understand that the object of the Bank is to
obtain power to extend its business into the territories
of the Hudson's Bay Co and to San Francisco, California;
Their Lordships see no objection to the grant of such power.