No. 33

I have had the honor of receiving Your Grace's Despatch of the 14th May last No 19, accompanied by communications from the Hudsons Bay
Company, in reply to my Despatches Nos 57 and 58 of the 3rd and
5th of December 1862, relative to the delay on the part of the
Company in the completion of the preliminary arrangements for the
carrying out of the Indenture of Agreement of 3rd February 1862.

2. Your Grace impresses upon me the importance of not raising
unnecessary controversies with the Company's Officers, but of
conducting the correspondence in a liberal and conciliatory spirit.

It has ever been my desire to act with the Company's Officers in the
settlement of all these matters in the most frank and cordial manner,
but consistently with the duty I owe Her Majesty's Government, and
with the interests of the public, I could not refrain from pointing
out to Your Grace what appeared to me a most remarkable and
unnecessary delay on the part of the Hudson's Bay Company in
revealing what extent of land would revert to the Crown under the
Indenture before mentioned of the 3 February 1862. In doing so I did
not desire to raise any unnecessary controversy. I believed Your
Grace to be in ignorance of the true facts of the case, and I deemed
it but right to lay them before you. It was furthest from my wish to
cast any undue reflections upon the Hudsons Bay Company, but I could
only judge of events as they occurred on the spot, and, as I have
already remarked in a previous Despatch, if the Hudson's Bay Company
felt hurt at the appliance to them of the inferences to be drawn
from proceedings involved in so much mystery and delay, they had but
themselves to thank for it by adopting such a line of conduct. I
notice that Mr Berens in his letter to Your Grace of the 17th March
alleges that my communications are conceived in a spirit of hostility
to the Company. I need take no further notice of this observation
than to remark that this is not the first time that an attempt has
been made by the Hudson's Bay Company to give such a complexion to
the public acts in respect of the Company which my position has
required me to take. I have however carefully abstained from ever
permitting the true merits of the case to be lost sight of through
the introduction of personalities. I desire most sincerely, and that
speedily, to see the Hudson's Bay Company confirmed in all that they
have a legal and equitable right to under the concessions made by Her
Majesty's Government; but I do not desire in a settlement of that
right to see the public necessities disregarded, and land yielded up
to the Company that is actually possessed and occupied for public
purposes; and I feel sure that Your Grace will support me in what I
have done upon a perfect comprehension of the whole case.

3. I trust that my Despatch No 11 of the 20th April last,
accompanied as it was by complete Maps and Plans explanatory of the
land treated of, will have served to place the whole case clearly
before Your Grace, and to solve any difficulty that may exist to a
speedy settlement of the matter.

4. It is perhaps almost unnecessary that I should trouble Your Grace
with any further remarks upon the correspondence you enclose to me,
but I would desire to draw Your Graces attention for a moment to the
two cases in particular in which I maintain that the claims of the
Hudsons Bay Company under the Indenture should not be confirmed to
the great and manifest inconvenience of the public. The first is the
Government Reserve upon which the Government Buildings stand. Mr
Berens in his letter of the 17th March alluding, I presume, to this
Reserve, says

it is very strange that as the Reserve in question was planned by
Governor Douglas while in the Company's employ, that he should not
have himself any map or plan shewing its exact boundaries.

It is with respect to this that I especially complain of the action
of the Hudson's Bay Company. The Government Reserve
was planned by me, as stated by Mr Berens, while in the
Company's employ. In 1858 it was surveyed, boundary posts were
placed upon the ground, and it
was marked as so surveyed upon the official Map of the Town.
In 1859 Mr Berens admitted the Government to be
in possession of this Reserve. In 1859 its rear line was taken
by the Company, as the line of a street, and Town Lots were surveyed
off and sold
facing the rear of the Reserve, the street running
between them and the rear of the Reserve, and on the Map upon
which these Lots were publicly sold by the Company in 1859, the rear
line of the Reserve was exhibited
as laid down in 1858. And yet notwithstanding all this in 1861,
without any intimation to me, Mr Dallas suddenly disposes of nearly
two Acres of the rear of the Reserve so planned, so surveyed, and so
marked in
1858: and I am credibly informed has gone to the unusual extent
of granting a guarantee to the person to whom he sold it, a land
Agent, that the Company would protect him against questions of title.
The language in the Indenture, which requires a personal knowledge
of the locality thoroughly to appreciate, is interpreted by the
Company to deprive the Government of the aforementioned two Acres so
sold, and to confirm the act of Mr Dallas. I sent a plan of the
Reserve,
as originally laid out, to Mr Mactavish in July 1862, but he
declined to acknowledge it as being correct, although it only
contained the 10 Acres
precisely as marked on the Map in 1858, and admitted by the
Company in 1859 to be the Reserve. In Mr Mactavish's letter of the
21st January 1863, forwarded in Your Grace's Despatch now under
reply, the Reserve to be conveyed is represented to contain 10 Acres.
This is not the case for the piece beforementioned being deducted,
but 8 acres or thereabouts would be left to the Government, and as I
have explained in my Despatch of the 20h April last would render the
Reserve comparatively valueless for the Government purposes for which
it was allotted. Mr Dallas I am told was frequently seen (before
leaving the Colony) accompanied by Surveyors in the rear of the
Government Reserve, and he could not be ignorant that its rear line
formed one side of the line of the street, that a great part of the
opposite line was fenced in, that Houses were built on the
ground immediately opposite to the rear of the Reserve, and even
for some distance beyond; and it therefore appears to me
inexplicable, except for one reason, that the Government Reserve
should have not been described as Mr Dallas knew it was described
clearly and distinctly on the Map, but that it should in the
Indenture of Agreement have been made to appear to adjoin and to be
contiguous to a Farm, when surveyed Lots and two if not three
public thoroughfares did actually exist
between the Reserve, and portions of ground still unsold that
once belonged to the Farm mentioned. Mr Dallas offers no
explanation on this head in his letter of the 20 January 1863,
forwarded by Mr Berens.

The other case is the Post Office Lot. Mr Dallas claims the merit
of reserving this Lot to the Colony. Mr Dallas knew that it was in
possession of the Government, and had a Government building upon it,
and I presume for that reason "stepped forward" to reserve it for the
Colony. Mr Dallas also knew that the ground was claimed by the
Government
not only of this Lot, but of two adjoining Lots, the same
having been in undisturbed and undisputed possession of the
Government for more than 12 years, and as has been shewn in my
Despatches of the Numbers and dates as per margin,

*

virtually removed from the control of the Company; and as Mr Dallas
knew this, and also knew that a Government Building stood upon those
two other Lots, it seems to me more than strange that Mr Dallas
while so candidly coming forward in the interests of the Colony in
respect of the Post Office Lot and Building should have made no
mention at all of the other equally valuable Government Building, and
only such a mention of the two Lots as, I must think, he well knew
would yield them up to the Hudson's Bay Company. I sincerely trust
that the reasons and explanations I have already given in my Despatch
No 11 of the 20th April last, will induce Your Grace to insist upon
the Colony being left in undisturbed possession of the Government
Reserve
as originally laid down, and of the property, cut up into three
Lots, which is
now occupied and held by the Colonial Government in Government
Street, and in thus urging this step upon Your Grace I hope that you
will deem that I am not raising a controversy which is unnecessary,
but that I am performing a simple act of duty to the public which
it would be culpable to neglect.