No. 70

I have to acknowledge the receipt of your private letter of the
10th February in which you represent the inadequacy of the salary
assigned to the Office of Governor of British Columbia.

The frankness with which you have explained yourself in a matter of
personal concern, and of much delicacy is fully appreciated by me. It
relieves me of the embarrassment which often attends communications upon
such subjects, and enables me to address you with corresponding candor.

It is impossible for me to question for a moment the statements you
make as to the expenses unavoidably devolving upon you as the Governor
of Vancouver's Island and British Columbia, nor the present extreme
dearness of every necessary of life in those Colonies. I yield,
therefore, to the conviction that your emoluments have been fixed at too
low a rate, and I am prepared to sanction an addition to your salary of
One thousand two hundred pounds (£1,200) out of the local receipts of
the current year provided that the Revenue of British Columbia amounts
in the aggregate to not less than fifty thousand pounds (£50,000). The
numerous despatches which I have addressed to you explaining the
impossibility of imposing on this Country any of the charges of
Government for a Colony which has been forced into existence by its gold
discoveries relieve me of the task of repeating that I cannot depart
from the principle by which, in this respect, I have been guided from
the outset. You will, accordingly, distinctly understand that whilst I
am happy to meet your wishes to the extent above named the addition in
question can only be made out of Colonial resources, and on the
condition stated.