letter,
of in your reasoning made use to recommend to Her Majesty's Government acquiescence in the aware
1stly.
arr sweeping terms of your application. You must be already perfectly aware from the various Notifications which have been published regarding Crown Lands in this Colony since 1846. That the Governor in Council has been positively prohibited by instructions from England from alienating land in this Colony either in perpetuity, or for any period beyond that which might be sufficient to induce persons to erect substantial Buildings. That Her Majesty's Government did not see fit to recognize Grants or Sales of Land that had been made by any authority whatsoever up to the period of the exchange of the Ratification of the Treaty of Nanking, and 30th that a Committee was ordered to be appointed to inquire into the equitable claims of all Holders of land, to define the classes to which particular lots should henceforward belong, as well as their future annual rent, and to arrange for the disposal of further lots by Public Auction.
That Committee, on being appointed, proceeded to fulfil the important and invidious trust reposed in it with the most anxious and painstaking impartiality, and not only did the local Government see reason to consider its valuations, arrangements and recommendations liberal and just, and as such to sanction and confirm them; but its