Peel to Rogers (Permanent Under-Secretary)

In answer to your letter of the 22nd Ult. relating to the Hudsons
Bay Company, I am directed by the Lords Commissioners of Her
Majesty's Treasury to acquaint you for the information of the Duke of
Newcastle that My Lords have wished to allow to that Company all that
they could fairly claim on the resumption by the Crown of Vancouvers
Island. They claimed an unexpectedly large balance of £53,569
afterwards reduced by the withdrawal of an Item of £15,113 to £38,456
for which they proposed that they should be paid, as a compensation,
a sum of £35,000.

They were however unable to satisfy Mr Andoe and Mr Murdoch on
behalf of the Government, that more than £29,000 ought to be paid to
them, and even that sum included some Items which Mr Andoe
passed, not as a matter of account, but by way of concession only,
and on the ground of Public convenience, and the Interests of the
Colony.

My Lords therefore considered that they were acting in a liberal
spirit towards the Company when they offered a sum of £30,000 in full
satisfaction of their claims, and they had trusted that the Company
would have accepted that sum without further reference to the
particular claim, which they had not fully succeeded in establishing,
for the passage and maintenance of Settlers.

In the claim, as it was first made by the Company, they assumed that
of Seven Hundred Settlers expected to be sent out to the Colony, one
half would be taken up by the Puget's Sound Company, and they charged
the Government, in consequence, with Passage-Money for Three Hundred
and Fifty Settlers amounting, at £23 each Settler, to £8050, and with
£17,500 for Maintenance at the rate of £50 a head. It then appeared,
as stated in a letter from the Governor of the Company, that only
about Six Hundred and Thirty went out, that the sum spent in
Maintenance was very much under £17,500, and that the cost of
Maintenance was only £23 for each Settler instead of £50.

That took off £9,450 from the original claim; but, on the other hand,
it was said that the Puget's Company took only Eighty, and that the
550 others were all chargeable to the Colony: and, the cost of the
additional 200 Settlers for Passage-Money and Maintenance being about
£9200—the Claim as amended came out nearly the same in amount as
before.

My Lords concurred with Mr Andoe and Mr Murdoch in not thinking the
explanation satisfactory either generally or as to why the first
statement of numbers should have been erroneous, and they considered
that the Government was entitled to take that number as the basis of
the calculations. They think it, however far better that the terms
for the reconveyance of Vancouver's Island should, if possible, be
made acceptable to both parties than that recourse should be had to
Legal Proceedings—and £5,000 being the difference between the sums
asked by and offered to the Company—they would not, desirous as they
are of assisting His Grace in coming to an amicable settlement with
the Company, object to give half that difference and thus to raise
the balance payable to the Company to a sum of £32,500.