No. 58

I have the honor to enclose herewith a Memorial which has
been handed to me for transmission to Your Grace.

2. The Memorial

purports to be signed by the British Residents
in the Colony of British Columbia. It has 433 names attached to
it, and may be divided into two heads, vituperation of the
Governor and Government, and an appeal for Representative
Institutions.

3. This Memorial was placed in my hands at New Westminster
just prior to my departure up the country, and I therefore took
the trouble to make express enquiries into the grievances
therein set forth; but I found the people

generally with whom
I conversed were well contented, and had no complaints to lay
before me. I further found that many who acknowledged to
signing the Memorial, had done so in utter ignorance of its
contents, as a paid emissary had been employed to procure
signatures to the Document, and had represented that the object
in view was to obtain Representative Institutions.

4. I do not make these remarks in any defence of my own
character

which is therein assailed, but merely for the information
of Your Grace. My policy and the measures I have adopted, are
all before Her Majesty's Government, and the gracious approval
that has been accorded to them fully assures me that the many
difficulties attaching to my position have been understood and
appreciated.

5. I would further desire to remark with regard to
Representative Institutions, that I should be very glad to be
relieved by their establishment of some

of the burdens and
responsibilities now weighing upon me, but I must distinctly
state that I conceive the time has not yet arrived for the
introduction of such a form of Government. I have established
Municipal Bodies at New Westminster, Hope and Yale,

*

and with this the people are highly satisfied, as the addresses I
received in my tour fully testify, but for a Representative Government
the country is not yet sufficiently settled; and the British
element in the population is still

so small, that it is only
recently it was found necessary to pass a law for the constitution
of Juries by the admission of Foreigners and the dispensation of
any property qualification.