Copies Of The Correspondence Shall Be
Laid Before You, And I Feel Assured That Should Any Proposal Calculated
To Effect
The establishment of such communication on terms advantageous
to the province be submitted to you, it will receive encouragement at
Your hands."] But whatever may be the extent or the value - as to which
latter point I fear my opinion does not, as I regretted to find, quite
coincide with yours - of the sympathy and support of Canada, any new
bias in favour of your projects, as promised in your prospectus, has
been mainly aided by the belief which, entertaining it, I inculcated,
that without loss of time, and with the promptness and energy of
English merchants, the new Government of the Hudson's Bay Company would
establish, with the aid of the provinces east and west of the Hudson's
Bay territory, but without shirking its own share of duty, telegraphic
and postal communication in British interests, available for
commercial, and requisite for other and even more serious, purposes.
That the works would be begun at once, and that the Hudson's Bay
Company, so long obstructive, would now set an example of despatch, and
that that which had long been hoped for and promised by others, would
now be accomplished by them as the pioneer works of an early settlement
of the cultivatable portions of the country.
"It is obvious that, unless materials are supplied and plans arranged
before the end of September, the overland operations must wait a year's
time. Therefore, apparently under a misapprehension of your wishes or
policy, as our interview of yesterday showed, I looked out for the best
practical man I could find fit to undertake the construction of a
telegraph and system of posts, enabling postal and telegraphic service
to be worked together. I found that man in Mr. O. S. Wood, an American
settled in Canada, the engineer and manager of the 4,000 miles of
telegraph owned by the Montreal Telegraph Company, which pays 23 per
cent, upon its capital of 100,000l.; and believing him to be
exactly the man for the occasion, I agreed with him, subject to your
sanction, to superintend and be responsible for the erection and
operation of a telegraph and system of posts between Fort Garry and
Jasper House. I do not trouble you with the document, as it is to be
cancelled, so far as your Company is concerned; but I may shortly state
that it proposed the completion of the works by October, 1864, and in
addition to a liberal, but not excessive, payment for Mr. O. S. Wood's
work, responsibility, and experience, it awarded a percentage upon all
savings on the total sum of L30,000l., the outside estimate
taken for the whole job, and a small premium for all time saved in the
completion of the work. These payments were to be so made that the
integrity, completeness, and success of the work would be their main
condition.
"I also made a very important conditional agreement with this Montreal
Telegraph Company, under which they were to extend a new and
independent, or precautionary, line of telegraph from Halifax (Nova
Scotia) to Mirimichi and on to Father Point, connecting with the other
existing telegraphs up to Arnprior (Ottawa), and another telegraph from
Arnprior to the Sault St. Marie, where you have a trading port.
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