No. 60

I have to acknowledge your [Vancouver Island] despatches No 39 of
the 9th September and No 3 of the 12th October
last,

on the state of affairs in British Columbia, the latter containing a
detailed report of your observations during a visit to the Frazers River
territory from which you had then just returned.

I can but repeat (and I do so with great pleasure) the testimony
which I have already borne to your energy and promptitude amidst
circumstances so extraordinary as those in which you found yourself
placed, and to assure you of the sense entertained by Her Majesty's
Government, of the capacities you have thus signally evinced. The
information which your despatch conveys is likewise of the most valuable
kind.

I await with much interest the reports which farther acquaintance
with the resources of the Colony will enable you to make of the probable
revenue to be derived from it in the course of the following year. I
was fully prepared for the accounts which your despatches convey of the
high price of all articles of necessity and convenience, and the
dearness of transport; and I recognize (as I have done on another
occasion) your equitable right to a considerable advance of Salary as
soon as the revenue under sagacious management and thoughtful economy
warrants that expenditure on official incomes which would at present be
wholly inadmissible. But I have dealt with the subject of the financial
position of the Colony in another despatch of this days date.

All doubt as to your power to impose a duty on imported articles
will now have been removed, since the general words of the recent Act of
Parliament and Charter of the Colony, have plainly invested you with
this as well as other legislative authority. The amount which it may be
desirable to impose must be mainly regulated, in the first instance, by
your own judgment and experience, tho' I will own that at this distance
it appears to me that ad valorem duty of 10 per Cent, is somewhat too
high and may defeat its own object. I desire not, however, in hazarding
this opinion to shackle the judgment of a Governor who has shewn himself
so able. I cannot conclude without expressing my cordial approval of
the manner in which you appear to have carried out the two objects which
at the onset of such a Colony should be steadfastly borne in
view—vizt
a liberal and kindly welcome to all honest Immigrants, and the
unquestionable supremacy of British Sovereignty and Law.