Peel to Rogers (Permanent Under-Secretary)

In reply to your letter of the 22 June last, I am directed by
the Lords Commissoners of Her Majesty's Treasury to acquaint
you for the information of the Duke of Newcastle that Their Lordships are hardly prepared to give authority for the
purchase, at the expense of this Country, for the sum of £3000,
of the Native title in certain tracts of land in Vancouver's Island.

It is true that the Governor stated that the Treasury should be
repaid out of the proceeds to arise from the sales of Public
Land, but the House of Assembly assert the liability of this
country to bear the charge of extinguishing the aboriginal
title, and My Lords cannot view such a claim as amounting
merely, as the Governor considers, to an application for a Loan.

It appears from Mr Douglas' Despatch, that the practice, till
lately has been to purchase Native Rights—so far only as the Land over
which they extended was immediately required for settlement—and My Lords
cannot but think that if a similar course were now pursued, the necessary
progress might be made in the acquisition of Lands without purchasing
Native Rights on so large a scale, at once, as to require that a Loan
should be raised for the purpose.