Separate

I have the honor to transmit herewith a letter, with
its enclosures, addressed to Your Grace by Messrs Cormack
and Holbrook, of New Westminster, and placed in my hands
unsealed to be forwarded in the regular manner according
to the Rules of Her Majesty's Colonial Service.

2. I regret that Your Grace's attention should be taken
up so unprofitably, as by a perusal even of the accompanying
documents, and also that my time should be diverted from matters
of real importance now pressing upon me to report upon the
conceptions of the gentlemen in question. Nevertheless the
matter is not uninstructive as being a fair illustration of
the species of misrepresentation that has obtained in respect
of these Colonies, and as shewing how a few men, with an
unscrupulous newspaper at their command, upon statement wholly
ex parte, form their conclusions, and disseminate those
conclusions not as theories of their own, but as well
substantiated facts.

3. The gist of the complaint of these Gentlemen, as I
understand it, is that this Government did not publish verbatim
et literatim an Essay upon the Colony of British Columbia,
which they in their capacity of two members of the Board
appointed for adjudication, had pronounced to be the best of
the Essays submitted, and entitled to the reward offered by the
Government to induce the production of such Essays. And these
gentlemen further assume that not only has the Government not
published the original Essay, but that it has been greatly
altered and a complexion given to it wholly at variance with
the sentiments of its Author.

4. I will endeavour as shortly as possibly to report upon
this complaint.

5. This Government being desirous of obtaining and diffusing
information respecting the capabilities, and resources of
British Columbia, offered a premium of Fifty pounds sterling to
any person who should produce an Essay that would best meet that
object. A Board of three persons wholly unconnected with the
Government were appointed to decide which Essay sent in merited
the award. This Board consisted of the undermentioned persons:

The Revd Henry P. Wright, M.A., Archdeacon of Columbia

Mr Henry Holbrook Residents of

Mr W.E. Cormack New Westminster

Two Essays were submitted to them, one written by the Revd
R.L. Brown a Clergyman of the Church of England resident at Lilloett
in British Columbia, the other written by Mr A.C. Anderson,
formerly of the Hudsons Bay Company's service, and a resident of
Vancouver's Island. The Board decided that Mr Brown's Essay
was the better of the two, and that it was entitled to the Fifty
pounds premium. The manuscript Essays were then returned to
the Government. Both the Essays appeared to be valuable works
written with much care, and containing a mass of statistical
information highly useful to the intending Emigrant, but both
otherwise appeared too diffuse and bulky to be sought by the
intending Emigrant, and more calculated for the general reader
who had no other object in view than seeking information and
amusement. As Mr Brown's Essay was considered by the Board
the better of the two, and as he had begged, if it were to
be published that he should have the revisal of it previous
to publication, he was advised of the particular object the
Government had in view in calling for the Essays, and was
asked to undertake the condensation of his Essay to meet more
closely the end intended. He readily assented, and the
Manuscript of the original Essay was forwarded to him in
precisely the same condition it was received from the
Board of Adjudicators. He returned the Essay condensed, and
it was sent unopened from the Colonial Secretary's Office to
the printing Office at the Camp of the Royal Engineers at
New Westminster. Mr Brown from time to time communicated
with the Printer, but the Essay did not again come into the
office of the Colonial Secretary until it arrived in its
printed and complete state: and there is not the shadow of
doubt that the Essay as now printed is precisely word for
word as it was written by Mr Brown; and that not one word
has been interpolated or one sentiment suggested by any Officer
connected with the Government. I annex copy of the correspondence
which passed between Mr Brown and the Colonial Secretary, and
this of itself I think most completely and satisfactorily
overturns the statements of Messrs Cormack and Holbrook. Mr
Brown is just now I believe at Carribou, and I doubt not when
he returns will declare every word and every sentiment in the
printed Essay to be his, and will throw some light upon the
attempts which he hints at in his letter of the 27th March were
made to induce him to publish his Essay clandestinely.

6. Messrs Holbrook and Cormack publish in the British
Columbian newspaper a paragraph which they assert was in
the original Essay, and place it side by side with a paragraph
which appears in the published Essay, and they would wish
it to be inferred that changes of a similar character have been
made throughout the Essay. In a letter addressed to the Editor
of one of the Daily papers published in Victoria, the Arch-deacon
of Columbia declares that the first time he "ever saw"
the extract alleged to be taken from the original Essay
"was in a leading Article of the 'British Columbian'". I forward a
copy of the Archdeacon's letter here alluded to.

7. In the correspondence forwarded to Your Grace by Messrs
Cormack and Holbrook will be found copies of two unofficial
notes addressed by Archdeacon Wright to Mr Young the Colonial Secretary, but as a copy of Mr Young's reply has been withheld, I also herewith enclose it. Your Grace will observe that
Archdeacon Wright was in possession of it when he forwarded a
copy of his second note to Mr Young to Messrs Holbrook and
Cormack, and had Mr Young's note been published concurrently with the rest of the correspondence the whole of the charges
made so recklessly against the Government by Messrs Cormack and Holbrook would have lost their plausibility and consistency.
The Archdeacon himself does not explain why he in forwarding
copies of his unofficial notes to Mr Young to Messrs Cormack
and Holbrook suppressed Mr Young's reply.

8. There are many other points upon which I might animadvert,
and which would serve to overturn the fabric of complaint which I
must say has been very ingeniously raised, but I think I have
said enough to satisfy Your Grace of the groundlessness of the
allegations preferred by Messrs Holbrook and Cormack, even if
the correspondence between the Colonial Secretary and Mr Brown
relative to the publication of the essay does not sufficiently
elucidate the whole matter.