I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch No 5
of 23rd October 1850, in which after expressing a hope that the
emigration to California may ultimately prove beneficial to this
settlement, you point out a mistake I have fallen into in supposing the
Puget Sound Agricultural Company to be identical with the Hudson's bay
Company. I am fully aware that the rights of the Puget Sound Company
are recognised in the Treaty of 1846, between Great Britain and the
United States, but my remark was merely intended to apply to the state
of things here. The Agent of the Hudsons Bay Company receives, I am
informed, a salary for acting as Agent of the Puget Sound Company,
beyond this the latter company are not represented in this country,
labourers bound by engagements to the Hudson's bay Company have been,
and now are employed on the Puget Sound Company's Land Claim, without
any change of service. The Hudsons Bay Company make use of such
portions of that Land Claim as they think fit, for the erection of
buildings, cutting timber &c, a saw mill and houses attached for the
workmen are standing on it, their property, Farming stock such as
cattle, and sheep, are removed from one company's claim to the other
belonging alternately to each of them, but always under charge of the
Hudson's bay company's servants, none of whom acknowledge any service to
the Puget Sound Company, the greater part being ignorant of its very
name; A Further proof of their identity here may be found in the fact
that these persons employed on the Puget Sound Company's Land Claim are
allowed to make their purchases at the stores of the Hudson's bay
Company, at the same reduced rate of prices as when employed on the Land
claim of the Hudsons bay company, a privilege which is declared to be
strictly reserved to the servants of that company. I think that these
statements will prove sufficient explanation of my remark.
Mr Grant has returned to the Island and resumed possession of
his farm at Soke, one or two persons in the employment of the Hudson's
bay Company have as they inform me agreed to purchase small plots of
land near Fort Victoria at very high rates, others who are willing to
settle are deterred by the price,
I have received a note from Captain WelleslyWellesley, commanding H.M.S.
Daedalus, of 24 October 1850 San Francisco, in which he informs me that
one of his boats was fired into by the Indians near cape Scott, by which
the officer in charge and two marines were wounded, all slightly, I have
no particulars, but presume the occurrence has been reported to the
Admiral on the station,