Confidential

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Confidential
Despatch of the 22nd November enclosing Copy of a Minute by Mr. Harnley
on the subject of the advantages which would accrue to British Columbia
if it were included in any Treaty for Commercial Reciprocity between the
British North American Possessions and the United States.

Although the course taken by the United States puts the question to
rest for the moment, I am glad to have been made aware of your views in
regard to it, and to have perused Mr. Harnley's sensible and apparently
well considered Minute.

I take this opportunity to transmit to you with reference to Mr.
Seymour's Despatches of the 4th February and 17th March last a Copy of a
letter from Mr. Villars on the same subject together with a Copy of a
letter from Sir John Rose to whom the correspondence was referred.

A Copy of your Confidential Despatch and of the above
correspondence has been sent to Sir John Young with whom you will be at
liberty to communicate should negotiations on this important matter be
resumed at any future date.