But The Service Is Popular, And There Can Be No Difficulty In
Keeping Up A Staff Fully Able To Cope With The Sharp And Energetic Men
Employed By The American Traders, - Your Permanent Rivals In Business.
"It is perhaps unnecessary further to explain the reasons of my not
proceeding to Red River.
As before stated, I had expected to do so in
company with Captains Glyn and Synge, without whom I should have
hesitated to undertake the more extended and responsible task at first
proposed. I did not in any event expect that Governor Dallas would come
to Canada prior to the receipt of your official letter of the 6th July,
and for which I had been waiting from the 30th June until the 20th
July; and when he arrived, and especially when I found that the
purposes of my proposed journey had been in great measure previously
fulfilled by him, it became a question of whether it ought not to be
postponed. He had already folly advised the Governor and Committee of
the 'state of the Red River Settlement,' of its 'suitability for
settlement,' and of the general and highly favourable features of the
tracts, over which he had travelled for 1,800 miles in various
directions. The best route for a telegraph could be, and was,
suggested, to you from his own observations, corroborated and added to
by the personal experience of Mr. Hopkins and others, who had often
traversed the districts, and had resided for years therein. The entire
feasibility of constructing a telegraph across the Continent was not
only confirmed by these experiences, but by the practical views of
persons consulted, who had set up lines through even more difficult and
wilder tracts of country.
"Therefore the objects you appeared to have before you were realized,
if not directly through me, yet through the colleague you had selected
for me, your own local governor, of whom I cannot express too high an
opinion, having been his almost constant companion for above a month,
during which every detail, so far as we could grasp it, was thoroughly
discussed.
"Having given my best attention and labours to the whole subject for
some years, and believing that I might be of more service to you here,
since Governor Dallas could not be spared to come home, and could not
prudently have left Canada until he had put all your business there in
order, I exercised no unwise discretion in returning to England.
"I have now to ask your forgiveness for the length of this paper, and
to express my readiness to give any further explanations in my power,
while wishing you and your colleagues quite to understand that I have
no desire whatever - but far the contrary - to obtrude myself upon you in
the control of an enterprise which I honestly believe can be made
completely successful by the exercise of even ordinary energy and
skill, and which ought to be safe and certain in such experienced and
able hands as yours.
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