Colonial Despatches

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of Mr Under Secretary Elliot's letter of the 27th ultimo, together with copies of two despatches from Governor Douglas.

In my letter to your Grace of the 3rd November last I had the honour to place before your Grace the sketched Maps of the property which Mr W.A. Young had forwarded to the Companyfor for Conveyance to the Crown and I was not aware that there was any difficulty in regard to them except as to the site to be reserved for the Harbour Master. I however immediately wrote out to the Company's Agents with directions to have a plan made of the whole Island shewing exactly, also what had been disposed of and what remained for the Government, and I ventured to suggest that your Grace should give instructions to the Agents of the Crown for the Colony to make a similar plan. Indeed I was surprised to find from Governor Douglas' letter that he should not have provided himself with a correct plan ofthe the whole Island, and of the different holdings by parties who had acquired any portion of it.

I have always understood that there was such a plan in the Office of the Colonial Secretary, although it has been intimated to us that alterations have from time to time been made in it.

I beg to assure your Grace that it is the earnest desire of this Company to adhere most strictly and in perfect good faith to the conditions of the Agreement entered into with the Government and I quite assent to your Grace's suggestionsthat that no grants made by the Company within the Victoria reserve after the 1st of January 1862 ought to be recognised by Her Majestys Government, unless it could be shown that the negociations for them had proceeded so far before that date as to make their completion a matter of right, and it has never been intended to raise any question as to the right of the Crown to receive the price of any land sold after the 1st of January 1862. My belief is that it will be found that there is none such.

It is quite obvious thatGovernor Governor Douglas' communications are conceived in a spirit of hostility to the Company and their representatives in the Island, and it is very strange that as the reserve in question was planned by himself while in the Company's employ that he should not have himself any map or plan shewing its exact boundaries.

I am however now enabled to inform your Grace that by the last Mail we have received from our Agent Mr Mctavish full particulars of the land to revert to the Crown with a Map shewing its exact position andI I cannot do better than transmit herewith for your Grace's information a copy of the plan and of a letter from Mr Mactavish in reference to it. The plan was forwarded by Mr Mctavish to Mr Young the Colonial Secretary on the 7th of January last.

I beg to add that from the communications received from the Company's Officials it is quite clear that the mention of Fort Street as the site of the Office for the Harbour Master instead of Broughton Street was purely a clerical mistake, as in the Company's plan inthe the Island it is marked as being at the foot of Broughton Street, and the land at the foot of Fort Street is covered with buildings long previously erected by the Company and occupied by their Officers, and the clear understanding was that the Office for the Harbour Master was to be erected on a part of the vacant ground.

I hope therefore that your Grace will give instructions to His Excellency Governor Douglas for the correction of this error.