Colonial Despatches

With reference to your letter of 2nd ultimo, and the subsequent correspondence on the subject of the retransfer to the Crown of Vancouver Island, I have to report, for the information of the Earl of Carnarvon, that we have received back from the Hudsons Bay Co the proposed Draft Re-conveyance, the alterations in which, suggested by the Colonial Government, we had submitted for their consideration.

2. Messrs Maynard & Sons, the Solicitors of the Company, in returning the Draft state that it appears to be quite correct, if certain words introduced by the Colonial Authorities in the first head of exceptions to the Reconveyance, be expunged. The exception as altered runs thus And also all land situated in the Victoria District forming any portions of sections 18 & 32 on the Colonial Official plan of the said Island, which may have been sold by the said Company previous to the 1st day of January 1862. The words underlined in red ink were introduced by the Colonial Authorities, and are the words objected to on the part of the Company. Their effect is to limit the exception to land sold by the Company in Sections 18 & 32, which are the Sections comprizing what the Company claimed as their private property on the ground of possession before January 1849, whereas by the Agreement of 3rd Febry 1862 all sales of Land by the Company in any portion of the Victoria District were to be effectual against the Crown. Sales, therefore, made by the Company of Land in the Victoria District, although beyond sections 18 and 32, should, as the Draft was originally framed, be excepted from the Re-conveyance.

3. As the Company's objection to the restrictive words appears to be well founded, we propose to have the Deed engrossed without those words, and presented to the Company for execution, unless we should receive Lord Carnarvons instructions to the contrary.