"I Desire At Once To Say That The Heads Of Arrangement Which I Have
Written Down With The Montreal Telegraph Company And With Mr. Wood, For
Your Consideration, Were Of Course Entirely Subject To The Sanction Of
The Governor And Committee Of The Hudson's Bay Company.
And, in
accordance with what I understood to be your views, when to-day you
were good enough to
Leave the Deputy-Governor in order to see me in the
board room by appointment, I shall consider it my duty to cancel all
that has passed, in such a manner as, I trust, will be perfectly
satisfactory to your colleagues. There will then remain nothing beyond
a responsibility for a few essential materials, as to which time was an
object, amounting to not more than a few hundred pounds at the utmost,
which I shall take entirely upon myself, under the circumstances of
doubt and difficulty as to the opinions of the shareholders of the
Hudson's Bay Company which you represented to me. And with a desire to
avoid similar complaints, I do not propose to make any charge whatever
for my own expenses, or, if I may be excused the word, services, in
connection with the mission I have had to undertake. That mission,
however, cannot go without explanation, for I am anxious to avoid all
misconception now, or hereafter, and I desire, therefore, by a frank
statement, at once to court contradiction, should it be merited.
"Having had much to do with the discussions which led to the transfer
of the Hudson's Bay Company's property, I had expressed my willingness,
inconvenient as it must be to me, to act as a member of a proposed
commission of three, including Captain Glyn, R.N., and Captain Synge,
R.E., whose duty would be to investigate the position of the
undertaking at its head establishment, - to report upon the re-
organization of its business, the development of its mineral resources,
the settlement of portions of its territory as a new colony, and the
opening up of the country by the telegraph and by means of transit.
Captain Glyn and Captain Synge had both been consulted, and the Duke of
Newcastle had been applied to to obtain leave for Captain Synge at the
War Office. I had been led to believe that my services were considered
of some value, and I left England on the 20th June, expecting that
Captain Glyn and Captain Synge would follow me in a week, and that we
should at once proceed to Red River, and send home a first, but full,
report by the beginning of October. I understood also that such a
report was desired, to clear away any objections to the operations of
the re-organized Company which might be factiously raised. And when,
after my arrival in Canada, I received the prospectus with your name as
Governor of the Company at its head, I found a condition of that
document to be that I was to examine and report and advise generally,
in concert with other gentlemen, specially qualified for the duty, not
only upon the question of telegraphic and postal communication, but
also as to the other objects proposed in the scheme officially laid
before the public.
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