Berens to Newcastle

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Mr Under Secretary
Elliot's letter of the 18th ultimo accompanied by a copy of a
despatch received by your Grace from the Governor of Vancouvers
Island under date the 30th July last having reference to the
arrangement entered into between this Company and Her Majesty for
settling the claims of the Company to certain lands in Vancouvers
Island.

I beg to assure your Grace that this Company has been most desirous
to carry out the terms of that arrangement and immediately after
those terms had been settled instructions were forwarded to the
Company's Representative at Victoria to take the necessary steps for
the fulfilment of the Agreement, and they have every reason to
believe that the Company's Officers at Victoria have used their best
endeavours to give effect to these instructions but there appears to
have been a want of assistance in making the necessary surveys and
plans of the property.

From the correspondence which has passed between the Company's Agent
and the Colonial Secretary at Victoria I have every reason to hope
that the matters unsettled between them are not of any material
importance but positive instructions shall at once be forwarded to
arrange the selection of the 50 Acres reserved to the Company.

It appears that under date the 15th July 1862 Mr W.A. Young
forwarded to the Company's Agent sketched Maps of the property
he proposed to have conveyed to the Crown which consisted of

1. Ground for the site of a Harbour Masters Office and entrance
to a Public Wharf.

2. Barracks and Post Office Lot.

3. School Reserve, Church Reserve and Cemetery, Parsonage,
Public Park.

4. Government Reserve across James' Bay.

I have the honour to transmit herewith to your Grace, in case you
should not already have been furnished with them, a copy of the
Answer returned by the Company's Agent to this communication from the
Colonial Secretary and of the reply of the latter.

From these communications your Grace will observe that the matter
which was more immediately the subject of the Governor's complaint,
has reference to the site for the Harbour Master's office, the
Company's representatives having proposed to allot the required water
frontage at the end of a Street called Broughton Street instead of,
as provided by the Agreement, at the foot of Fort Street.

It appears from the communications raised from the Company's Agent
that the frontage at the foot of Fort Street has been long since
covered with buildings occupied by the Company for the purposes of
their trade, and it seems clear therefore that when the arrangement
was come to through the medium of Mr Dallas, then in this Country, he never could have intended to have appropriated for the use of the
Harbour Master ground already covered with Buildings and in actual
use, and on reference to the Deed of Arrangement your Grace will
observe that the reservation is

save and except therefrom the unsold portion of the water frontage
reserved for the use of the Harbour Master being Lot [blank] in the
said last mentioned place and situate at the foot of Fort Street in
the Town of Victoria and measuring about 50 feet in width.

It is clear therefore that this exception had reference to a frontage
understood to be then reserved for the use of the Harbour Master but
not distinguished upon the place by any number, but which Mr Dallas
from recollection supposed to be at the foot of Fort Street.

I have the honor to send herewith a small plan shewing the position
of Fort Street and of Broughton Street from which your Grace will
perceive that such a mistake was not unlikely to occur, but upon this
point I would take leave to refer you to a correspondence which
passed in the last year on this very subject.

Under date the 23rd May 1861 your Grace forwarded to me copy of a
communication from Governor Douglas in which he complained that the
Company were about to sell a portion of this water frontage which he
considered would be required for the Office of the Harbour Master
stating that the Company's representative had proposed to build for
the Harbour Master an Office on part of the land then unsold, and to
lease it to the Crown at a rent, but this being objected to, I at
once, in accordance with the desire expressed by your Grace, sent out
orders to the Company's Agents not to dispose of any of the land
referred to.

It is clear therefore that it was a part of this land upon which the
Governor then suggested that the Harbour Master's Office should be
built, and that, as he distinctly referred to the land which the
Company were about to sell, he could not have intended the land at
the foot of Fort Street upon which the Company's own Buildings were
then standing.

I respectfully submit therefore to your Grace that the arrangement
with the Crown will be fairly carried out if 50 feet of the foreshore
about the end of Broughton Street are reserved for that purpose.

At the same time I admit that the letter of the Agreement is that the
land should be at the foot of Fort Street, and if a literal execution
of the Contract is insisted upon the ground must be given up to the
Crown at whatever cost or inconvenience to the Company, but in that
case the Crown would of course either pay for the buildings now
erected upon it or the Company would be entitled to remove them, but,
as upon the explanation I have now given, I think your Grace will see
that the agreement will be substantially and fairly fulfilled by the
cession of the frontage in the manner proposed by the Company's
Agent. I trust that his plan will be accepted.

The other points of discussion between the Company's Agent and the
Colonial Secretary are I believe of very minor importance and I will
at once give instructions that they should be disposed of in an
amicable and liberal spirit.

If your Grace has not been furnished with the plans forwarded by the
Companys Agent to Mr Young we are in possession of copies of them
which I shall be happy to furnish to your Grace.

*

I will only add that as the Crown is now entitled to receive from
this Company a reconveyance of the whole Island excepting such parts
as have been disposed of or as are, under the arrangement with this
Company, to be retained by them, the better course would now be that
this Company should execute to the Crown a Re-conveyance of all that
belong [to] it. For the purposes of such Re-conveyance it will
undoubtedly be desirable that we should be furnished with a correct
plan of the whole Island with an indication upon it of the parts
that are not to be conveyed to the Crown, and we have given very
pressing instructions to our Agents to forward such a plan, and your
Grace will probably think it right to give directions to the same
effect. The Re-conveyance can then be prepared and executed in this
Country and the whole matter will be thus disposed of.