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furnished one, so can form no opinion on it; and as the Statistical Return was not annexed to the Report of the Commission, I was ignorant till now that the Commis- sioners had been furnished with copies, and must only regret that they did not consider it necessary to give to General Order No. 28 the prominence accorded to Mr. Seed's file.

In conclusion, I can only reiterate that in writing my Report,

considered myself bound as a witness on oath openly to bring forward facts, irrespective of all personal considerations. I had no intention of making accusations, or of imputing motives to any one. For the facts themselves I cannot consider myself responsible, or called on to apologize; the question is one of appreciation; it was my duty to state the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and should unfavourable impressions be the result, they cannot be placed at my door.

I have, &c.

(Registered No. 4382.)

(Signed) J. T. N. O'BRIEN, Lieutenant-Colonel,

Inspector-General of Police.

THE following Order of his Excellency the Governor is communicated to the Inspector-General of Police for his information and guidance:-

"Government Order on letter No. 259, dated 26th October, 1872, and headed-- 'Respecting Captain Blunt and Police Inquiry Commission.^

"It is idle to continue a correspondence with an officer who is unable or unwilling to perceive the points at issue. They are in this case very simple. Ho either meant to charge Judge Gorrie and Captain Blunt with having suppressed a document or he did not do so.

If he did not mean to do so he should have no scruple in stating this. If he did, he should admit that inquiry has shown that no ground for such suspicion exists, and that the suppressed document was, in fact, produced, commented on, and made a subject of examination before the Police Commission, and afterwards given the utmost possible publicity and prominence by Captain Blunt.

"The only answer Captain Blunt's letter of the 14th September appears to have received from Colonel O'Brien was that he was prepared to prove before the Royal Commission what he had advanced. This cannot be regarded as the explanation to which that officer is entitled, and Colonel O'Brien will inform him that he, as requested, transmitted his explanations to the Governor, and that those explanations appear to his Excellency to be perfectly satisfactory."

November 14, 1872.

(Signed) W. H. MARSH, Assistant Colonial Secretary.

(General Branch. Registered No. A/1729.) Sir

Mauritius, Colonial Secretary's Office, September 26, 1872.

I AM directed by the Governor to transmit to you the copy of a letter which he has received from the Honourable Mr. Justice Gorrie, on the subject of certain para- graphs of your letter of the 24th ultimo, addressed to the Royal Commissioners of Inquiry.

You will perceive from this letter that the inferences which (whether you intended them to be so or not) must necessarily be drawn from those paragraphs are erroneous, and his Excellency cannot but express his regret that you permitted your- self to bring (at all events by implication) charges of partiality and improper suppres sion of papers against a Judge of the Supreme Court, without more carefully assuring yourself of the grounds on which those charges rested.

I need not point out to you that such accusations, serious when preferred against any man, become doubly so when urged against one whose office renders the strictest impartiality on his part a more than ordinary duty.

His Excellency antcipates that your own good feeling will prompt you voluntarily to express to Mr. Justice Gorrie the regret which you will no doubt feel at having made use of language of which he is justly entitled to complain as at least appearing to suggest imputations on his conduct as a member of the Police Commission, and his Excellency therefore abstains from giving those instructions which he would otherwise have been inclined to direct me to convey to you.

I have, &c.

(Signed) EDWARD NEWTON, Colonial Secretary.

Sir,

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Chambers, Mauritius, September 12, 1872. I HAVE the honour to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 10th instant, and I beg you will convey my thanks to his Excellency the Governor for transmitting me a copy of the communication made by Lieutenant-Colonel O'Brien, Inspector-General of Police, to the Royal Commissioners.

I have perused that communication, and in particular Articles 5, 8, 32 and 44 thereof, and in reply I have to state :-

1. These paragraphs, especially Nos. 5 and 8, imply a charge directed specially against myself, as being the member of the Commission to whom Mr. Spencer alleges he handed in the book or file of General Orders, that I had out out one or more of the General Orders from the book, for the purpose of keeping them from the knowledge of the Commission.

2. I deny and repudiate in the most emphatic manner this extraordinary and offensive imputation..

3. If Mr. Spencer gave in any book or file of General Orders at the time when he was heard as a witness, as appears from his letter, then it was handed in to the Com- mission, and Mr. Spencer had no right to use the name of any individual Commissioner in the manner he has done. I do not recollect whether the witness handed in any such documents when he was examined, but if he did the book or file would be placed by the Chairman among the other papers in his "dossier," as was his practice with all the documents of the Commission, and be laid on the table at each succeeding meeting of the Commission for the inspection of all the members who chose to look at them. The Annexure No, 10 to the Report (p. 461) shows that the file of General Orders must have been in the General Police Office in March 1872, four months before it is said in Mr. Spencer's note to have been returned by Captain Blunt.

4. When Colonel O'Brien states that the attention of the Commission was only drawn to selected memoranda and General Orders, quoting Mr. Seed's letter Annexure A. in support, he shows that a confusion exists in his mind as to what was submitted to the Commission, and what was printed in the Appendix to the Report. Mr. Seed's letter evidently refers to the extracts he was asked to make for the purpose of printing in the Appendix.

5. If, on the other hand, Mr. Spencer gave in the book or file of General Orders when he was examined as a witness, it is clear the Commission must have had the whole before them, and the insinuation that either I or any other Commissioner kept back Order No. 28, if amongst the others when Mr. Spencer handed them in, is of course absolutely untrue. Its tenor is precisely the same as that of those printed, vis, stimulating the exertions of the police as to vagrants, and encouraging them to "diminish the erratic tendencies of the Indian," with a saying clause as to hawkers to which the Commissioners refer in Articles 43 and 208 of the Report.

6. In paragraph 82 of his letter Colonel O'Brien refers to an order in the Appendix, but nothing contained in any order of the polios, or opinion of the Procureur-General, could alter the law and the Executive Regulations with which the Commissioners were dealing in paragraph 225 of the Report.

7. The statements in paragraph 44 that a tendency was evinced in the Report to incriminate the police, meaning, no doubt, thereby that such was the tendency in spite of the evidence, and that charges are insinuated throughout the document, and not honestly brought forward, are not merely unwarranted imputations on the integrity of the Cammissioners, but they could scarcely have been ventured upon by any one who had considered the evidence given by the officers of police themselves.

8. I beg also to be permitted to draw the attention of the Governor to para- graph 48, where an insinuation is again made against me under colour of a reference to the Colonial Secretary's letter of instructions that I acted when on the Commission as an "accuser." This charge is made because it was my duty, some months previously to the Commission, to draw the attention of his Excellency to a particular instance of irregularity in getting up evidence in a case of arson tried before the Supreme Court. The accusation thus made shows the spirit in which my effort to obtain greater purity in the administration of justice has been met by the Inspector- General of Police, and I need not say that, if such efforts are to be encountered by the systematic opposition and hostility of the police authorities, it will, be hopeless to endeavour to introduce a better system.

The Hon. the Colonial Secretary.

I have, &c.

(Signed)

JOHN GORRIE.

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