Colonial Despatches

I have the honor to signify to you my approval of the estimates of Revenue and Expenditure of British Columbia for the year 1863 which you forwarded with your dispatch No. 14 of the 7th of March last.

Towards meeting certainclaims claims of the Imperial Government you have inserted in these estimates an item of five thousand and fifty-two Pounds three shillings and eight pence (£5052.3.8) which is less by two thousand Pounds (£2000.0.0) than the amount claimed for the Silver coin and the Assay Office only.

In the settlement proposed in your despatch of the accounts between the Imperial and Colonial Governments you credit the latter with two thousand Pounds (£2000.0.0) as a portion stated to be undrawn of theParliamentary Parliamentary aid for the year 1862-3 (or year ended the 31st March last) but in the letter of which a copy is enclosed the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury have shewn that not only in order to satisfy demands made within the year 1862-3 were they obliged to anticipate the grant for 1863-4 but also even if no further draught upon the last named grant were to be presented for payment there would still be an available balance of only one thousand Pounds (£1000.0.0) or half the deficiency above adverted to.

In order to prevent the possibility of any mistake about the value of the Specie, which it was entirely unjustifiable on the part of the British Columbia Government ever to appropriate, I have instructed the Agents General for Crown Colonies to pay the whole value of the Specie viz six thousand nine hundred Pounds (£6900.0.0) to the British Treasury out of the proceeds of the loan now in course of being raised for the Colony.

Their Lordships imply at the close of their letterthat that the claims of sixty nine Pounds thirteen shillings (£69.13.0) for the Bishops passages and of ten thousand seven hundred and four Pounds sixteen shillings and seven pence (£10704.16.7) for overdrafts will be the subject of a further communication from their Lordships.