No. 135

I have had the honor to receive Your Grace's despatch No. 48
of the 1st August, informing me that no subsidy can be given by
the Imperial Government towards the conveyance of the mails to this
Colony, but that the Postmaster General has written to the Postmaster
General of the United States requesting to be informed whether some
arrangement cannot be made for the transmission of the British mails
by the steamers which it is understood have lately been established
under contract with the American Government between San Francisco
and the ports north of it.

2. Finally Your Grace is pleased to approve of an arrangement
I made for six months with an American Company for the conveyance
of our mails.

3. I will advert to the last topic first and state that this
despatch will be conveyed by the last vessel which will run under
the contract and that the Colony cannot afford to renew it. From
this date until better times may come I must give up hope of any
regular communication with Your Grace.

4. The suggestion proposed by the Duke of Montrose would
leave our letters at Portland in the State of Oregon, high up the
Columbia River. From thence they would have to be conveyed at
irregular intervals by steamer to Monticello on the Cowlitz, and
then again trust to chance for carriage in the "stage" to Olympia
on Puget's Sound. Once there their conveyance to Victoria would
be pretty certain.

5. Our best chance of communicating with the Mother Country
for the future will be, it appears to me, in the kindness of
Officers commanding American Ships of War which may touch at this
port on their way to and from Sitka.