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No.186.
honor to forward for your information copy of a dispatch which I addressed, by last mail to the Right Honorable The Earl of Carnarvon on that subject.
My reasons are given in that despatch for thinking it preferable not to disturb existing arrangements, under which I feel that we may congratulate ourselves on a marked and satisfactory decrease of piracy in the neighboring waters compared with the statistics of former years.
I feel that the duties within these waters which a Colonial vessel must discharge are essentially of a police character and would require her to be placed so entirely under the orders not merely of the Governor but of a Department of the Government, that unless she is completely and solely under the control of the local Executive, it would be impossible to have the special class of duties for which she is designed satisfactorily carried out.
It may of course occur that existing arrangements may be found hereafter inadequate, and that I may have to avail myself more exclusively than I now anticipate of the services of a Gun-boat detailed for special duties on requisition from the Governor, a privilege for which
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