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le quel tous doit s'englouter si votre Excellence ne vient promptement à notre secours.

La Colonie a des vivres mais l'administration n'a plus de moyers d'en acheter, elle en aurait trouvé en délégations sur le gage qui existait à St. Paul. On aurait même trouvé des secours pécuniaire en faisant des sacrifices, les bourses sont fermies et le Gouvernement reste sans crédit. L'esperance du payement des traites l'avait fondé, Votre Excellence a detruit ce seul moyen qui me restait pour faire le service.

Depuis longtemps j'ai eu l'honneur de rendre compte à Votre Excellence des suites qui devait avoir l'abandon dans lequel nous languissons. Le mal est à son comble et ce n'est plus aujourd'hui que du généreux dévouement des habitans que nous pouvour espérer les moyens d'exister jusqu'au moment ou nous recevrons le seul remide aux maux qui causeraient la perte absolue de ces Colonies, si la main protectrice du grand Napoleon n'étendait sur cette partie de son empire, que les braves colons, ses fidèles Sujets, jurent de défendre au péril de leur fortune et de leur jours. Il importe à la gloire du plus grand des souveraines que ces Colonies qu'il a bien voulu prendre sous la protéction spéciale lui soyent conservées. Leur sort dépend de votre Excellence quelques secours et hommes et du crédit suffisent. Nous devoirs done esperer. Ces vérités auront été presentés avec des détails militaires par le Capitaine Général, j'unir ici ma vois à la sienne pour dirè a Votre Excellence vous devez sauver ces Colonies vous le pouvez. J'ai l'honneur &c.

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Letter from the EARL OF CALEDON to E. COOKE, ESQRE.

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, October 10th 1809.

SIR,-In the representation which Captain Smyth has made to you he appears to have fallen into an error in supposing that the Colonial Secretary receives any fees which are not carried to public account. It has, I believe, been the invariable practice during the

British Government so to do, and there certainly is not at present nor to my knowledge has there ever been a deviation from it.

Captain Smyth as I have understood was appointed acting Colonial Secretary by Sir David, with an allowance of £1500 per annum, until the arrival of his successor. If Lord Castlereagh does not think the allowance was proportionate to the duties required of him, I am of course prepared to receive his Lordship's commands for any augmentation he may direct, but founding Captain Smyth's claim upon the Fees of Office he may have received and paid into the Colonial treasury because similar fees were supposed to have been afterwards appropriated to the advantage of his successor, I do not hesitate to say that Captain Smyth has no fair plea to any compensation upon that head.

I should have been much at a loss to account for the error in Captain Smyth's statement if it had not occurred to me that some confusion may have arisen from a conception that the advantages enjoy'd by the present deputy Colonial Secretary proceed from fees received in the Secretary's Office, and lest this should be the case, I beg your attention to the following explanation.

Mr. Hercules Ross, who was formerly Deputy Secretary, held in conjunction with his office the appointment of Commissioner of Stamps, and had a fixed allowance upon the sale of gunpowder, and continued with the receipt of these emoluments until the Colony was restored to the Dutch. Upon its reoccupancy by the British in 1806 Mr. Bird was appointed Deputy Colonial Secretary, and that he might possess in the fullest manner all the advantages enjoy'd by Mr. Ross, a letter was addressed by Mr. Secretary Windham to Sir David Baird, pointedly directing that those two appointments held by Mr. Ross should be continued in the person of Mr. Bird. It is under the instruction contained in this letter that Mr. Bird derives the benefit of any fees or emoluments, but to show how devoid of connexion the receipt of them is with the fees accounted for by the secretary, it is sufficient to observe that at the time Mr. Smyth was appointed to office Captain Gordon was nominated Commissioner of Stamps, and the issue of gunpowder took place through an officer of the ordnance department.

I should here omit a most pleasing part of my explanation were I not to mention that when I declined to confirm Mr. Fagel in the first instance as Vendue Master and had no Government place open Mr. Bird of his own accord most liberally made a temporary

resignation of his office as Commissioner of Stamps in favor of that gentleman until I could provide him with other employment.

With regard to the sale of gunpowder, it is attended with much trouble, as Mr. Bird has to issue the permits upon each individual application. No salary is allowed, and the full value of whatever quantity is issued from the Govt. stores is credited to the public.

I have been thus minute, and have perhaps deviated a little lest any cursory view should produce an arrangement less favorable to Mr. Bird than the present. He came to this Colony under a promise of those advantages enjoy'd by his predecessor, and the ability, integrity and indefatigable zeal with which he discharges every point of his public duty leads him to expect and me to solicit that his private interests may not suffer, more especially as upon coming out he relinquished a situation of high respectability upon the engagements then made to him, and incurr'd great expence in the removal of himself and his family, whilst Captain Smyth came here in the course of service, and held the situation connected with his other military allowances. I have etc.

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The Lord Viscount Castlereagh having this day resigned the seals of the War and Colonial Department, they were given by His Majesty to the Earl of Liverpool.

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Letter from the EARL OF CALEDON to VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH. GOVERNMENT HOUSE, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, October 12th 1809.

MY DEAR LORD,-By the same opportunity which conveys this to Your Lordship I have written what I hope may be found a sufficient ample detail of the Revenues of this Colony; it will occur to your recollection that I have in a former Dispatch submitted much of what is said upon the Paper Money, but as what is now

required is for the information of the Board of Trade I trust to Your Lordship for pardoning the repetition.

Many and great improvements may be easily suggested for the advancement of this Colony, but after my local experience and the attention I have given the subject, I feel some confidence in saying that unless the circulating medium is increased or one great branch of expenditure (in the Cape Regiment) reduced, no measures, however necessary, when attended with expence, can be executed without applying to the British Government for assistance.

Of Two million Rixdollars which forms the gross amount of paper money, upwards of one fourth is annually paid into His Majesty's Treasury as revenue, this revenue is rapidly increasing, and with its increase the credit of the paper money must augment.

A greater quantity may in my opinion be created and issued with advantage as an increase of Capital to the Lombard Bank, the distribution of it to be regulated by the Members of the Bank under the control and with the concurrence of the Governor for the time being.

What I now propose and what Your Lordship's dispatch of the 12th of May seems already to sanction is that there should be vested in the Governor a discretionary power of creating a Sum not exceeding one million of rixdollars, the same when created to be delivered to and issued by the Lombard Bank. It would in this case be my duty to use the authority with such caution as would guard against the consequences of too rapid or too great an increase. The amount being deposited might be applied partly in loan to Government, partly to the use of those who would solicit pecuniary assistance.

That part received by Government in loan should on no account be considered as Revenue, but be applied to the erection of public works, and those works when erected should be considered as public property mortgaged to the amount to which public money has been expended upon them.

The proportion intended for the more immediate use of the inhabitants might be distributed in Loans upon the usual terms subject to a payment of 6 per Cent per annum Interest, secured upon the private property of the borrower.

With regard to the first proposal as relating to a loan to Government I suggest that whatever sum may be lent should have

a substantial representative, for unfortunately when the British Government has before found it expedient to create money for temporary purposes such as for the purchase of rice by General Dundas, it was necessary to redeem that creation at the surrender of the Settlement, whereas if the same amount had been brought into circulation through the Lombard Bank by an expenditure upon a public edifice that edifice would probably have been received by the Batavian Government as an equivalent, or if rejected as an equivalent, the sale of it would in some measure have repaid the expences attending its erection. Nor is this the only point of difference. Sums created for the purchase of Articles of consumption cannot be expected to make a return, but if applied to the erection of such buildings as a Wharf or Market place, a wharfage duty on the hire of fixed states increases the annual revenue and pays the interest if not in part the Capital.

If I am so fortunate as to obtain your Lordship's concurrence in my observations upon the necessity and mode of increase, and should in consequence receive a confirmation of your sanction for acting upon the suggestions, the application of the sum would be the next and most pleasing consideration, and here I must observe that the field of benevolent policy is so wide as to leave me in some measure at a loss upon what point first to solicit your attention. The erection of a public prison, a Market place and a wharf are alike necessary, nor is it less so to supply the upper part of the Town by means of an aquaduct with water.

The prison, of which there is but one, is situated in the lowest part of the town, and is too small to afford a convenient, or indeed scarcely any separation of the different classes of prisoners, nor from want of a Court yard can those imprisoned under Capital charges be permitted to take the exercise necessary for their health, compatible with the security of their persons. But as a prison is that description of building which cannot repay the interest of a loan or which (if the Colony were ceded) might not be received as an equivalent for the money issued on account of its construction, and would but ill remunerate the British Government by its sale, it might perhaps be more advisable to attain this object at another period by means of other funds.

Connected with the police of the Town the establishment of a market place is particularly called for, here the butcher exposes his meat to the door of the house in which he lives, a custom extremely

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