houses which have been built within that bound, that those Houses on becoming vacant can only be rented to Officers, and this intimation will, I conceive, enable whomsoever you may assign them to, to do so at your pleasure.
I think it right to take this opportunity (the first that has occurred since you assumed the Command) to acquaint you that I was in a great degree 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 in General Order that their occupation was optional, and that each Officer, whatever his rank, who occupied a House was to pay the Indian House Rent of a Subaltern (28 Rupees monthly).
I wrote to Lord Saltown in a private letter some time in the early part of last Year - so far as my memory serves - repeating that offer in two modes. One as above, with the House Rent to be paid according to rank. The other, that money should be advanced from the Treasury to Officers, agreeable 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 fully repaid, the house to be considered public property, and the amount stopped (less the monthly House Rent of their Rank) to be refunded.
Had