We have now to refer Your Excellency to Ordinance No. 2 of 11th March, 1847, by which Sir John Davis fixed the Government grant at only £1,600. The plan of the Church selected by Sir John Davis was prepared in the Surveyor General's Office, and estimated to cost £10,394.3.4, and this Estimate were sent home in 1845, along with several others, to the Right Hon. W.E. Gladstone, H.M. Secretary of State for the Colonies.
Mr. Gordon, who was then in the Surveyor General's Office, gave Sir John Davis an Estimate of only £6,960, the design of the Church being in all respects the same, with the exception of the Chancel being taken away, thereby diminishing the length of the Church by 10 or 12 feet, which certainly would not entail so large a reduction as £3,394; and we imagine that it was in consequence of a larger sum not being supposed to be required, by Sir John Davis, that the Ordinance No. 2 of 1847 fixed upon, and £60 less than Mr. Gordon's Estimate.
When the present Surveyor General entered upon his duties, and before the building of the Church was commenced, he pointed out several mistakes and omissions in Mr. Gordon's Estimate, and informed Sir John Davis that, in his opinion, a Church according to the design could not be constructed for the sum mentioned; and Colonel Aldrich and Phillpotts of the Royal Engineers, to whom the plans were successively submitted, were of the same opinion.
Sir John Davis, however, did not think proper to alter the Ordinance or the design, and the Architect was ordered to proceed with the building. Accordingly, tenders were issued, and the lowest of several was £3,000 above the Estimates. A second...