I am directed to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of this date, and to inform you that your proposal to be allowed to finish the buildings on the ground improperly transferred to you by Captain Meik is totally inadmissible.
No part of the ground regarding which a reference has been made to England can be appropriated, unless to public uses, until further an answer shall be perceived. I am desired to remind you that you were formerly recommended to remove the materials you laid down, so that should you suffer any loss from not doing so, it is your own act; and to add that what has hitherto passed does not, in the opinion of His Excellency the Governor, give you the slightest claim to the ground.
Signed, Richard Woosnam
No: 47
Major Aldrich
Royal Engineers
Victoria, August 5th 1863
I am directed by His Excellency the Governor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 2nd Instant.
His Excellency has already acknowledged through me, the receipt of the survey of the Northern face of the Island, and he is happy to read the testimony you bear to Captain De Havilland's exertions and zeal.
His Excellency would wish Captain De Havilland (whose services it is understood do not require longer) and Private Mahon to assist Mr. Gordon - the Land Officer - in minutely surveying, measuring, and laying down the lots of ground that have been already sold or granted on any terms to individuals within ...