CO885(3-4) — Page 233

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Printed for the use of the Colonial Office.

SECRET AND CONFIDENTIAL.

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Report of a Colonial Defence Committee on the Temporary Defences of the Naval Station of Esquimalt and the Important Commercial Town and Harbour of Victoria.

Sir,

Admiral Sir Alexander Milne, Bart., G.C.B., to the Colonial Office,

Committee Room, Whitehall, April 1, 1878.

I AM requested by the members of the Colonial Defence Committee to forward the inclosed Report, containing the expression of their opinion with regard to the defences of the naval station of Esquimalt and important commercial town and harbour of Victoria.

The Committee have dealt with this question separately, and submit their Report upon it apart from the rest of the Colonial harbours, as, looking to the remoteness of these places, and the length of time which must necessarily elapse before any preparations adopted here could be carried into effect, they consider it highly important that no time should be lost, so that the local authorities may receive communication by telegraph as to the measures which it is desirable for them to adopt.

I have, &c.

(Signed)

ALEX. MILNE, President.

Report.

P

ESQUIMALT.

THE harbour of Esquimalt, which is at a distance of only four miles from that of Victoria, the chief town of Vancouver Island, contains a small but essential naval estab- lishment, with stores and workshops for the use of Her Majesty's ships on the Pacific station.

Neither of these harbours is at present provided with any means of defence, although there are among the naval stores in Esquimalt four heavy and eight medium rifled guns, besides five other smaller guns, which, with the stores, in the absence of works for the protection of the harbour, are exposed to capture or destruction, unless protected by a naval force,

The Lieutenant-Governor of the Province has applied by telegram, through the Governor-General of Canada, for permission for the Volunteer Artillery Corps at Victoria to make use of four of the guns now in store, to which the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty have replied that there are serious objections to complying with this request, as it is, in their Lordships' opinion, essential that the naval reserve should be kept for the exclusive use of Her Majesty's ships.

Considering the importance of Esquimalt as the only refitting station in British territory on the western coast of America, and that the loss of the stores there might

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TITILICO. 885

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