I regret to inform your Lordship that I find myself compelled to
tender my resignation as governor, and solicit an immediate recall from
this colony, as my private fortune is utterly insufficient for the mere
costs of living here, so high have prices been run up by the Hudson's
Bay Company, and as there are no independent settlers every requisite
for existence must be obtained from them;
My health has completely given way under repeated attacks of ague,
and shows no signs of amendment. Under these circumstances I trust your
Lordship will at once recall me, and appoint some person as my successor
whose larger fortune may enable him to defray charges which involve me in certain ruin; I trust that your Lordship will give directions that I
may be furnished with a passage as far as Panama in one of HM Ships, as
my state of health will not bear the long voyage round Cape Horn, and
being compelled to defray the expenses of my passage out, by the
Hudson's Bay Company who repudiated the bills their Chairman had
authorized me to draw, has so straightened my private means, that I am
unable to pay the heavy expenses of the route through California.