I have the honour to enclose for the information of the Secretary of
State a copy of a document transmitted from
Vancouver's Island, being
an information & interrogatives filed against the
Hudson's Bay Company
in Chancery by the Attorney General of the Colony.
It appears to me
that these proceedings are entirely at variance with
the purport of the agreement entered into on
February 3 1862 by
which it was stipulated that the sales made by the Company previous
to
January 13 1862 were to be held valid & effectual as against the
Crown.
It is true that the alleged relator is not the Crown but
M John
Despard Pemberton the Surveyor General of the Colony, but of the
character & object of the proceedings there can be no doubt. We
trust that the Right Honble. The Secretary of State will give
instructions to stop
all proceedings on the part of the Crown
Officers contrary to the tenor of the Indenture of
February 1862,
which we on the part of the Company are prepared at once to carry out
by the best means which can be derived. For this purpose
Mr Dallas &
myself last week had an interview with
Mr Murdoch & the course to be
pursued was in the main agreed upon.