private parties, on a statement laid before him by counsel the usual certificate of leave to Fletcher's Trustees to extend their frontage. This is best proved by the fact that through the whole transaction not a single incident occurred to induce the Surveyor General to suppose at the time that the War Department was in treaty for the ground.
The effect, however, of such certificate in no way abridges the right of this Government to take upon itself the reclamation of the land to seaward, or, if reclaimed by others, to resume it subsequently for Public purposes - and therefore this Government is now only exerting such a right as is acknowledged in all cases.
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If that right is thought to conflict with some plans of the Military, such a circumstance only proves the inconvenience of the latter forming such plans without the privity of the Colonial Authorities. Therefore, when I am told by the Major General that reference to such documents as Colonel Moody's and Colonel Lovell's letters, or that the above-mentioned certificate of the Surveyor General "show the Colonial Government have been made fully aware of all the Military plans for the War Department extending Boundary by reclaiming from the sea"...