which the respective accounts are sent in to me and makes it appear as though they were detained in my office. I shall have the honour of embodying the other subjects mentioned in Mr. Martin's letter in my Report when I transmit the accounts after they have been audited. I shall therefore only remark in the second place, upon a subject which Mr. Martin is already reporting upon Your Excellency's verbal instructions, that "the proposed change in the method of making advances on Imprest should have a retrospective effect, and is refusing cash against the 3rd month's expenditure, for the 1st Quarter, which have been issued to and by Your Excellency and upon the payment of which the Accountants have calculated.
This venture to assert is productive of unnecessary inconvenience, and if Mr. M. Macpherson's suggestion, that departments should only draw for two months' Imprest is to be acted upon, I submit for Your Excellency's consideration that the alteration should be only prospective. But upon the question altogether I beg leave to differ entirely with the Honourable Treasurer as in my opinion, the change would be an improvement, and all changes in Government accounts are to be deprecated.
I have been informed that though Major Aldrich's instructions expressly forbade his advancing Imprest money, he has found it impossible to carry on his Military works without doing so and he has therefore not complied with his instructions in this respect.