Ao 543.
Sir,
30 July 1857
I have laid your letter dated Yesterday before His Excellency the Governor, who desires to be distinctly informed whether your communication to the Secretary of State is intended to convey a declaration not to fulfil the duties imposed on you by your position, or to select such part of them only as you yourself think proper to discharge. If so, Sir John Bowring will deal with the subject by previous decision here as he does not think it necessary to refer to the home Government the question, whether or not a weak functionary shall prescribe to himself the extent to which he will obey the instructions given him by His Superintendent. I have so...
Page 549
The same to the same.
31 July 1855
I have laid before the Governor your letter of this day.
It is His Excellency's glad to observe that in employing the phraseology that "the only duties you would be able to carry on would be the supervision of Government works, and preparation by designs reports and estimates of buildings" you did not intend to decline the discharge of duties imposed upon you in other respects and by the requirements of Colonial Ordinances, some of which were framed at your own special suggestion.
His Excellency will give you all the assistance in His power to enable you properly to exercise your functions, and in every case of complaint by you has called upon the Magistrates for explanations. He thinks they have been wrong in some of their decisions and has conveyed to them that opinion - so that he hopes causes of complaint will be removed. But at the same time he feels that on your part there has been sometimes exhibited an unreasonable impatience and a want of that consideration, the exercise of which would tend to remove difficulties and to create facilities.
The Correspondence shall be laid before the Executive Council who will be consulted as to the propriety of troubling the Secretary of State in this matter.
Page 552
Sir,
Cowbritany,
1st Aug 1856
In acknowledging your letter 62 of this date, His Excellency The Governor requests me to inform you that the whole of the foregoing Correspondence on the subject of your recent differences with the magistrates and others, was this day considered at a meeting of the Executive Council duly convened for the purpose.
It was then resolved that it was unnecessary and undesirable to trouble the Secretary of State with the Correspondence in question.
Ed. Secretary