No. 48

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Grace's
despatch No 9 of the 18th February, explaining that your
Grace's object in transmitting to me Captain Clarke's scheme
for the disposal of land, was merely to put me in possession
of the views

of a gentleman of great practical ability, and
extensive colonial experience on the best means of meeting
difficulties such as he had himself encountered in administering
the affairs of a rapidly growing Colony.

2. This I supposed was your Grace's object and the motive
which kindly induced you to forward Captain Clarke's

scheme,
and I was not led from the tenor of your accompanying despatch,
to think that you had done so as a preliminary towards carrying
such a scheme into execution in a formal manner, and without
regard to the Laws regulating the sale of Crown Land now in
force in British Columbia.