No. 216, Financial

I have the honor to forward herewith to your Grace, the
copy of a Letter, dated August 12th addressed to me by
Captain Gosset the Treasurer, requesting that a supply of coins
may be sent out from England, with as little delay as possible,
so as to avoid the inconvenience and loss which is now daily
experienced in consequence of the absence of such coins.

2. I submit the application to the favourable consideration
of your Grace, and I trust you may see fit to cause it to be
complied with, as the matter is one of great interest to the
Colony, both socially and politically.

3. With reference to Captain Gosset's remarks as to the
establishment of a Decimal system of Currency, I am not prepared
at present to offer my opinion thereon, but I may mention that
although in the Government offices, every financial transaction
is carried on in British Currency, yet throughout the whole of
both Colonies the Mercantile Community have adopted the Decimal
system of the Dollar and Cent, and Captain Gosset's proposed new
coin suitable to that system

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would be found most appropriate and convenient, and probably of more
practical utility, than either pence or halfpence.

4. Captain Gosset suggests that the Coins sent out should
be paid for in Gold dust, and with this suggestion I perfectly
concur, for at present all the Gold dust from British Columbia
finds its way in the first instance to San Francisco, and there
becomes incorporated with the Gold produced in that State, so
that up to the present time the people in England have had no
tangible proof of the auriferous character of British Columbia,
and I should be glad to establish the fact, for there is no doubt
that the circumstance of the entire produce of the country having
hitherto been absorbed in a Foreign Market, has tended to create
a feeling of doubt and apprehension in England as to the true
nature of the Colony, and has undoubtedly retarded what I have
a most earnest desire to see established, and what I am convinced
would be equally beneficial to both a direct Trade between the
Mother Country and the Colony, as well as a direct emigration from
the Mother Country.