I most respectfully beg to tender this for your consideration, and
in doing so I trust you will not conclude that I have unnecessarily
troubled you. On the 30th of August 1851 on the resignation of
Governor Blanshard I was duly sworn a member of council of the Government of
this colony.

At a council convened on the 5th of October 1852, His Excellency
James Douglas Governor, moved the following resolution.

That we consider it derogatory to a member of Council to be a
retail dealer of spirituous liquors or to follow any calling
that may be subversive of order or injurious to public morals.
To which I assented in the abstract, but proposed the following
amendment.

That, it is highly derogatory to the Council to pass any resolution
which is virtually aimed at any individual member of the same council,
and accordingly that the foregoing resolution is hereby expressly
declared not to be intended to affect either directly or indirectly any
individual member of the present council, but is intended merely as the
expression of a purely abstract opinion in the most general terms.

This Amendment was rejected, and the Governor also informed the council that it was his intention to transmit a copy of the foregoing
resolution to the Authorities in "England".

I find it necessary to enter more into detail of these particulars
than I anticipated, and solicit a further hearing, feeling that my
official duties as member of council are attacked, and that my private
character would thereby be seriously injured.

I am a resident Colonist in Vancouvers Island (in fact the only
Colonist from "Great Britain" unconnected with the H.B. Co.) and
as general dealer or Merchant, Spirituous liquors are sold by me
according to the standard rule in Her Majestys dominions in quantites
not less than two gallons which constitute a wholesale dealer and not as
implied in the resolution a retail dealer.

Up to this date no law exists in the colony to prohibit the sale
of spirituous liquors in any shape. On the contrary three
licenses have been issued by Governor Douglas for the sale of spirits of
which number I hold one, having accepted it when the Governor
spontaneously recommended me to do so. I have every reason to
believe that the above is the result of a premeditated Scheme to obtain my withdrawal from the Council, as the vacancy could be filled with
individuals more congenial to the wishes of the Hudson Bay Co.

Trusting for an impartial judgment