546
Liv
Mr. Bowdler somewhat barely. Mr Bowdler however having received no numbered list of species from Mr Ford, and both Mr Brencau and Mr Bowdler having emphatically affirmed the impossibility of the large losses alleged by Mr Ford, I felt unable to admit the charge, and I should still hope to have found the Gardens in a flourishing condition.
I am happily able from personal knowledge to corroborate the real facts given by Mr Bowdler in the memorandum attacked (Appendix I) by which Your Lordship will see that Mr Ford has also in this instance been misinformed.
2.1. Such charges are founded on some misapprehension. A charge mentioned in paragraph 20, relating to a gentleman's having presented a valuable collection of plants to the Gardens which he subsequently found dead or dying, although similar plants presented to private individuals were found thriving, I cannot trust myself to dwell on the injustice which has been inflicted upon me by the publication of this Report containing charges at once humiliating and injurious without previous enquiry into their truth, and by the use which has been made of the Government Gazette, which is the official history of the Colony, for gibbetting me as the head of the large department over which I preside before the officers of the Government.