No. 28, Financial

I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your Despatch No 17 of the 9h May, acquainting me that Your Grace had authorized the Agents
General to accept and pay Six Bills amounting to £5000 drawn by the
Treasurer of Vancouver's Island on the 27h of February. I have also
the honor to acknowledge receipt of Your Grace's further Despatch No
18 of the 13th May advising me that the Agents General had likewise
been authorized to accept and pay three more Bills, Nos 7, 8, and 9,
drawn by the Treasurer to the amount of £6000.

2. I have duly noticed the remarks Your Grace has made with respect
to these Bills, both as regards the source from which they are to be
met, and the absence of the customary letters of advice.

3. In reference to the first point I have to express my regret that
any misunderstanding should exist as to the nature of the Bills, and
I really am at a loss to conceive how it can have arisen; inasmuch as
the Bills were drawn upon the Agents General, on account of the
£40,000 loan under a pre-arrangement made by themselves, the very
form of Bill to be used in drawing being furnished by the Agents
General; as will be seen from the following extract from a letter
addressed by them to the Colonial Secretary on the 1st January 1863

You shall be duly advised by the Mail of the 16h Instant of the
result of the sale, but if in the meantime the Government should be
pressed for funds, the Governor might draw on us to a limited extent,
say one third, or one half the amount in manuscript according to the
enclosed form, giving us due advice of the same.

In reply to this communication the Colonial Secretary wrote

His Excellency desires me to say that as a necessity exists for the
present application of a portion of the funds, he has authorized the
Colonial Treasurer, Mr Alexander Watson, to draw upon you as
suggested in the second paragraph of your Communication. The drafts
upon this account will be signed by the Treasurer, and countersigned
by myself, and will bear in addition a small unpressed Seal of which
a fac-similie will be found against my signature to this letter.

The Treasurer has been directed to keep you duly advised of all the
drafts made upon you as aforesaid.

On the 16h January the Agents General, in reporting the result of
the sale of a portion of the Debentures, remark

There can be little doubt but that the remainder will be successfully
placed on the market in the course of a few weeks and before any
Bills drawn by the Governor against the proceeds are likely to mature.

4. With respect to the second point, the absence of advices, I have
the honor to acquaint Your Grace that the Colonial Treasurer assures
me and an inspection of his letter Book bears out the assurance, that
upon no single instance has he ever drawn a Bill upon the Agents
General without concurrently writing, and sending off a letter of
advice. That the Bills may have arrived before the letters of advice
is owing to circumstances wholly beyond our control. Your Grace is
aware that we have no direct postal communication with the Mother
Country. Our Mails are carried between this and San Francisco by
American Vessels: and from thence there are no less than four
different ways by which letters may be forwarded, viz. By express
across the Rocky Mountains, by the ordinary Mail across the Rocky Mountains, by Steamer to Panama and from thence by Steamer to New
York, or by Steamer to Southampton. Bills purchased here are in most
instances, I believe, sent to San Francisco for resale, and once in
the hands of the Merchants there, it is not unlikely that they
would be forwarded on by the express, while the letter of advice is
travelling by one of the regular and less expeditious channels.
Indeed even in the ordinary channels of communication there is a
considerable difference occasionally in the time consumed, as all
depends upon the chance connection of Steamers not acting in
conjunction. As an illustration of this I would beg to mention that
nearly three weeks ago Colonel Moody received advices from the War
Department that Her Majesty's Government had determined to withdraw
at the close of the year the Detachment of Royal Engineers serving in
British Columbia, while up to the present moment Your Grace's
Despatches upon the same subject have not reached me. I can assure
Your Grace that I am fully sensible of the inconvenience arising from
the presentation of a Bill before its advice is received, &
I much
regret its occurence

in the instances mentioned in Your Despatches
now under reply. I trust, however, that Your Grace will absolve me
of the imputation that the inconvenience has arisen through any want
of attention of my part to the ordinary requirements of business.
In future I will direct that Duplicate Letters of advice be sent by
the same Mail from this, and I will endeavor to arrange that they be
forwarded from San Francisco by different routes.

5. I deeply regret to learn that Your Grace should entertain the
impression that the financial reports both from Vancouver's Island
and British Columbia are less methodical and complete than those of
any other Colony. I assure Your Grace that it has ever been my
desire to afford the fullest and most satisfactory information upon
these points to Her Majesty's Government, and so far as the Colony of
British Columbia is concerned I hoped I had succeeded. Since the
establishment of the Audit Officer in that Colony, the Accounts have
been regularly forwarded at as early a period as was possible in the
present circumstances of the Country, and the reports hitherto from
the Commissioners of Audit have led me to assume that their state has
been very satisfactory. With respect to the Returns required by the
Book of Colonial Regulations, I, immediately upon Your Grace calling
my attention to them upon a former occasion, issued instructions to
Captain Gosset, the Treasurer, to observe rigidly the rules laid down
respecting those Returns, and to forward the Returns periodically
with the utmost punctuality. I have now also drawn the attention of
the present Acting Treasurer to the matter, and have enjoined him to
permit no delay to occur in the making up and rendering of the
Documents in question.

With regard to Vancouver's Island, a great want of clerical
assistance has hitherto prevailed. The Legislature has as yet voted
no complete Civil List, that is to say small and insufficient
Salaries have been fixed by Law for the Heads of Departments, but no
provision has been made for paying the staff requisite for those
Departments properly to conduct the duties appertaining to them.
Upon one occasion the Assembly refused to vote any moneys by way of a
Salary to a Clerk for the Treasurer, and it was with great difficulty
that a small provision could be obtained to pay one
sole Clerk for the Colonial Secretary. The Revenue of the
Colony is small it is true, but from its circumstances, and from the
manner in which the Revenue is raised by direct Taxation, the amount
of business that has to be transacted both by the Colonial Secretary
and the Treasurer is very heavy, and Your Grace is well aware that
without a sufficient and a permanent staff it is impossible, however
careful and energetic the Head of the Department may be, to conduct
business either satisfactorily or methodically. In the present
instance I have directed the attention of Mr Watson, the Treasurer,
to the financial Returns required by the Book of Colonial
regulations, and I have instructed him to be most careful in duly
rendering them, and I trust that so far as the limited means at
present at my Command in this Colony will admit that Your Grace will
not again have occasion to apply to me for information which it has
always been my sincere desire to furnish in as complete a form as the
circumstances of the Colony permitted me.