CO885(1-2) — Page 146

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

C.O.

Reference :-

885

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

12

14. Consequently it would not be within the power of your Excellency to comply with the request of the members of the above said Committee, to acknowledge their official or legal existence, and the powers they intend to assume of representing the colony, and petitioning in its name Her Majesty and the Government in the interest and about the grievances of the community at large. Such a concession would be in opposition to the principle upon which rests the right of petition; and not- withstanding the privilege which might be conferred upon this Committee by your Excellency, the peti- tion of a certain number of individuals, or of a single one, of whatever class they be, even among the emancipated slaves, would have an equal claim to the consideration of Her Majesty's Government, and might, even with regard to the grounds therein set forth, be more favourably looked upon.

15. For these reasons it would be of no import- ance that the 210th and 211th Articles of the Penal Code be removed or altered, provided that the right of petition and the mode of exercising it be clearly defined and understood as it is in England, and the private association subjected to rules sufficient for preventing and repressing any illegal assumption of power, and securing good order and public peace.

I have, &c.

(Signed)

P. D'EPINAY,

Procureur and Advocate-General.

A Committee of fifteen persons, was then ap pointed, and they requested the Governor to recog- nize them with the same degree of confidence and freedom of communication as Lord Grey had accorded to the London Mauritius Association. The Go- vernor replied that he would receive and consider their communications and suggestions precisely in the same manner, as he was always ready to receive such communications from all persons interested in the welfare of the colony. The Committee then requested permission to hold a public meeting for the purpose of obtaining signatures to a petition to the Queen on the colonial grievances. This the Governor granted, and a meeting was fixed for the 9th November.

Sir Wm. Gomm, No. 261;

November 11, 1848.

L.

13

Applications were then made from South Pample- mousses and other rural districts, for permission to hold meetings with the view of electing branch Com- mittees, of fifteen each, who should correspond with the Central Committee in Port Louis.

Upon these applications the Procureur-General gave his opinion of the 6th November:

“November 6, 1848.

"1. Three general meetings have been recently authorized by his Excellency the Governor, having for their avowed object, That the merchants, pro- prietors, planters, and others might confer on various matters interesting to them and to devise, awaiting the result of the petition which the colonists are about to forward to their Sovereigns, such means of generally and faithfully representing the suffering position of the colony, and suggesting the remedy to their alleged evils. The result of the two former meetings has been the appointment of a Committee, for the purpose of drawing up a peti- tion to Her Majesty according to certain resolutions adopted with that view. The object of the third meeting to be held on the 9th instant, is the sub- mission and signature of the said petition.

"2. Under these circumstances, three inhabitants of the district of South Pamplemousses petition his Excellency for a partial meeting to be held in that district, of all the inhabitants of the same, for the purpose 'd'arriver au moyen d'éviter la ruine totale qui nous menace' (in common, I suppose, with all the other inhabitants of Mauritius).

"3. I do not perceive any difference between the declared object of the partial meeting solicited in that petition, and that of the general meetings above alluded to, and which is pretended to repre- sent all the classes and interests of the commu- nity at Mauritius and the Committee of which is asserted to be the organ of the whole population. The present petition would tend only to show that there is not in the complaints or sentiments ex- pressed in the name of the colony, so much unani- mity as is assumed, But though the Governor cannot acknowledge those former meetings as being the legal and undeniable expression of the com- munity at large, still it does not appear necessary or expedient to permit several meetings having the

E