No. 122

With reference to former correspondence on the subject, and more
especially to my despatch No. 103 of the 22nd of February 1862, I have
the honor to inform you that I have received a letter from the Treasury,
stating that their Lordships have paid to the Account of the Master of
the Mint at the Bank of England the sum of £6,900 in repayment of the
value of specie supplied in 1860 to the Colonial Government of British Columbia.

I have therefore to give you positive instructions that you must
forthwith discharge this debt to the Treasury. The simplest course
would have been that you should pay the amount into the Treasury Chest,
if there had been one in British Columbia as is the case in many
Colonies. In the absence of a Chest you can only settle the matter by
one of two methods: either by issuing out of the Colonial Revenue to the
Royal Engineers as much as £6,900 of the amount voted by Parliament for
their pay this year, and by curtailing to that extent your drafts on the
Treasury or else by a direct remittance to England. I have no objection
to your adopting the former course if you can make the payments to the
Royal Engineers from Colonial funds with perfect punctuality, but in
case of the least difficulty on that point, it would be necessary for
you to draw Bills on the Treasury so far as is warranted by the
Parliamentary Vote, since the Royal Engineers evidently are the first
claimants on the sum intended for them by Parliament. In this event
however you must take the first opportunity of remitting the sum of
£6900 to England.

I cannot too strongly impress upon you the necessity of your prompt
obedience to these instructions, and the impossibility of permitting any
Governor to appropriate to the service of his Government Imperial funds
which he has no authority to make use of.