97
but you will observe, that should it be still.
wish
· your
to let the question of the Ground rest as it is until
the receipt of Instructions from
England, San
prepared to have it intimated to the Owners of the three Houses which have been built within that
Ground, that those Houses, on becoming vacant can
only be rented to Officers, and this intimation will, I conceive, enable you to assign them to whomever
you
please.
I think it right to take this
opportunity, the first that has occurred since
you assumed the command to acquaint you, that I am
"am in no degree, or shape, responsible for the want of Officers' Quarters in this Colony.
I offered in an
Official letter so long ago as June 1842, to Major General Burrell, who then commanded here; to have Houses built for Officers on the simple condition, that he would notify General Orders that their occupation was not to be optional, and that the Officer, whatever his
rank,
it
ranks, who occupied a House would pay the Indian House Rent of a subaltern (25 rupees monthly)
---
"I wrote to Lord FitzRoy in a
private letter, some time in the early part of last year, to the best of my memory, suggesting that offer in two ways: one that advances
should be made from the
Treasury to officers, according to their rank,
to build houses for
themselves, such advances to be recovered from their Abstracts by certain moderate fixed instalments, and in the event of any Officer dying
or quitting
the
Colony, before
his advance was
repaid, the House to be considered Public Property, and the amount stopped (less the monthly House Rent of his rank) be refunded.
Had either
of these proposals been adopted
and followed up, it is obvious, that the present difficulty would have been, in a great degree if not wholly, averted, and although the responsibility
would.