No. 10

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of Mr Fortescue's Despatch No 57 of the 27th of October, on the subject of two letters addressed to me by Colonel Moody, dated respectively the 24th and 22nd of August last; the first relative to my having instructed the Magistrate of the Hope District "to select the site," and lay "out a Town" on the Shimilkomeen River; and the second respecting the
provision made in the Estimates of 1860-61 to meet the expenses
of the Royal Engineers in British Columbia.

2. Those letters having been received on the eve of my
departure on a protracted journey into British Columbia, where
I had an opportunity of conferring personally with Colonel
Moody, and there being really no point at issue with him, and
the subject referred to in his letter of the 24th of August
never having been since brought under my notice, I have
inadvertently neglected to forward those letters to Your Grace.

3. I now however, do myself the honour of transmitting
them, with some necessary remarks. I will not attempt to explain
Colonel Moody's object in addressing to me his letter of the
24th of August, but I beg to assure Your Grace that so far
from restricting the exercise of his legitimate powers, I have
used every effort to increase and promote the efficiency of
the Department of Lands and Works; and I have no doubt Colonel
Moody will be the first to admit that he has personally met
with every consideration and attention from me; and that our
intercourse, both public and private, has been uniformly cordial,
confidential, and friendly. So far from assuming any vexatious
controul over the subordinate departments of Government, I have
in every instance allowed the freest scope for the exercise of
talent and experience, by throwing the whole labour and
responsibility entirely upon the Officers conducting the
departments; using only a necessary discretion in regulating
details, restricting expenditures, rejecting the wild and
theoretical in principle, and striving to establish a thoroughly
sound and practical system.

4. In a Colony so extensive, inaccessible, and of whose
physical character so little was known as British Columbia, the
Lands and Works Department had to cope with peculiar difficulties
that would have taken years to surmount, and the energies of the
department might have been exerted to little purpose had it been
cast upon the wilderness and left to take its course without
experienced direction. The mountain passes and the general
character of the ground had to be examined before roads could
be laid out, and the country opened for travel; a service
which alone cost a vast amount of labour.

5. To save time and expense, all the preliminary explorations
on the great thoroughfares leading from Douglas, Hope, and Yale,
into the country beyond the mountains, were executed by the
District Officers, assisted by Indian Guides, and white men
inured to hardship and privation: and when by that means the
shortest and most accessible routes had been unmistakeably
established, the Commissioner of Lands and Works was authorised
to complete the surveys, to lay out the roads, fix the grades,
to contract for the work, and the necessary funds were placed at
his disposal, in order that the whole execution should be left
entirely in his hands.

6. The Town Sites in British Columbia, New Westminster
excepted, which was a deliberate selection, were all determined
by public choice, influenced by local circumstances of necessity
or convenience; for example—Hope, Yale and Douglas, from
being at the head of Steam Navigation in their respective
Districts, and Cayoosh and Lytton convenient termini in the
route by land: the plans and laying out of those Towns, however,
devolved in every instance on the Chief Commissioner of Lands
and Works.

7. The circumstance which gave rise to Colonel Moody's
letter of the 24th of August was as follows: owing to
rumoured discoveries of Gold at Shimilkomeen and Rock Creek,
I directed Mr O'Reilly, the Magistrate of Hope, to visit those
places for information; and as the public exigencies absolutely
required that a Town Site should be selected without delay, in
the country beyond the Hope mountains, for the storage of supplies to meet the wants of the Shimilkomeen and Rock Creek
Districts, and as all the Officers of the Royal Engineers were
otherwise employed, and Colonel Moody himself supposed to be
absent on duty, Mr O'Reilly was directed to make the choice.

I, at the same time, addressed a note to Colonel Moody,
of which a Copy is enclosed, repeating the instructions to Mr
O'Reilly, which were—to select a Town Site—and nothing
more; not, as is stated in Colonel Moody's letter, "to lay out
a Town", an expression, which as Your Grace will observe, does
not occur in my letter; and that such was not my intention, may
be further inferred from the fact that it would have been imposing
on the Magistrate a task which neither his previous experience,
nor the means at his disposal, qualified him to perform. When
addressing that letter to Colonel Moody, I was under the impression
that he was engaged in examining the Roads, then in course of
formation, beyond Yale: it appears however, that he received my
letter, and was present at Hope, when Mr O'Reilly left that
place. As Colonel Moody did take those serious views of Mr
O'Reilly's mission, represented in his letter, which though
sound in principle, I think totally inapplicable to the case of
a mere commercial town, whose position must after all be
determined by public convenience, as people are not generally
disposed to perch their houses upon bleak mountains or
inaccessible cliffs, simply because they happen to be good
military positions, his proper course, instead of referring
to me for orders, which could not possibly reach him in time to
be of any use, was to have proceeded at once to Shimilkomeen,
which is only 70 miles distant from Hope, and done whatever
appeared to him necessary in the case.

As Colonel Moody exercises the absolute controul in his own
department, and may in the course of duty visit at his own
discretion any part of the Colony he pleases, I must confess my
inability to explain why he departed from the rule on that
occasion; but of this I can assure Your Grace, that there was
no cause for assuming that my approval would have been withheld.

8. With reference to the remaining letter of Colonel Moody,
No 438, dated Hope 22nd August 1860, I have merely to remark that it was called forth by my communicating to him the purport
of the information received from Your Grace with respect to the
provision made in the Estimates for the Year 1860-61, to meet
the expenditure of the Royal Engineers in British Columbia;
but in doing so, I had no intention for one moment of creating
the impression that any breach of the terms and privileges
guaranteed to his Command by Her Majesty's Government, was either
contemplated or intended; and having afterwards personally
explained this to Colonel Moody, I considered he was satisfied,
and that there was no further occasion to take notice of the
matter.