CO885-(10-11) — Page 877

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

C.O. 885

Reference :-

11 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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

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should not be placed beyond the control of the Executive, as it will be the duty of the Executive to take care that they shall be applied, as directed by the Colonial Aot, “in We did not intend to advise, aid of the support of the Government of the Colony." and it does not appear that we ever did advise, your Lordship's predecessor in any different sense. We therefore see no objection to the course which his Excellency has adopted in directing those proceeds to be placed by the Treasurer to the account of the "Crown Revenue, as being that division of the public revenue of the Bahamas which has borne, as he representa, and must continue to bear, all such expenses of the Govern- ment of the Colony as those connected with the enforcement of the Foreign Enlistment

We have, &o.

Act.

The Right Hon. the Earl of Kimberley,

&c.

&c.

&c.

(Signed)

R. P. COLLIER,

J. D. COLERIDGE. TRAVERS TWISS,

3336.

No. 692.

(TRINIDAD.)

TREASURY SOLICITOR to TREASURY.

Treasury, March 9, 1871. SIR,

REFERRING to your letter of the 11th February transmitting a letter of 6th January 1871 from the Foreign Office, together with certain correspondence, &c. noted in the margin thereof, all of which is herewith returned, and requesting me to advise my Lords as to the expediency of legal proceedings being taken by Her Majesty's "American English and Venezuelan Trading and Government against the so-called Commercial Company " with a view to recovering the moneys which have been expended from the public Exchequer in relieving and re-patriating, the destitute British subjects who were induced by that company or their agents to emigrate to Venezuelan Guayana, I beg to

Report

That I have read the papers referred to me, and have seen and taken a statement (copy of which I forward herewith) from a Mr. Robinson, a bricklayer, who with his wife and child was one of the original party of 67 who left this country at the instigation of the agents of the so-called company. Their Lordships will perceive that much of his statement is hearsay; but he is a very intelligent man, and I have no doubt of its substantial accuracy. The agents of the so-called company in this country appear to have been a Mr. and Mrs. Pattison, the latter as "the Lady Promoter" taking the most prominent part, assisted by a person calling himself Captain J. Leslie Clark, said to be a nephew of Mrs. Pattison.

Mrs. Pattison, who is said to be an American, appears to have obtained possession of the books, papers, and correspondence connected with the "Price Grant," as it was called, and she and Mr. Pattison, who is said to be an Englishman, took a room at Emigration Society" with No. 3, The Crescent, America Square, London; started an “ subscriptions at 18. a week; published "the Emigrant's Vade Mecum; or, Guide to the Price Grant," and a pamphlet "by J. Leslie Clark," entitled "Emigration to Venezue lan Guayana," and obtained subscriptions and donations from many persons in this country of books, &c. under the auspices of "the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge," on the recommendation of a bishop and other church dignitaries, whose names were thus utilized, as vouching the respectability of the company, see pages 32- 34 of the "Vade Mecum.'

The Emigration Society was also represented to be under the patronage of the Duke of Manchester, who is said to have made a donation of 50l. to the society, as appears from the notice and circular letter issued by order of the "Lady Promoter."

It is probable that negotiatione had taken place between a Dr. Henry Price and the Venezuelan Government for a grant of 240,000 square miles of land to the former for the purpose of founding a settlement. It is not worth while to inquire whether “the charter," set out at pages 85-92 of the "Vade Mecum," was what it professes to be, and whether the letters from Dr. Price to his wife, set out at length in the same publication, are genuine documents.

By the help of the representations above stated Mr. and Mrs. Pattison succeeded in collecting a body of between 60 and 70 persons-men, women, and children-most of whom it may be presumed had subscribed to the Emigration Society; purchased “land warrants and paid their own passage money and shipped them from Hamburg to Bolivar, where they found no "agent or sloop belonging to the company ready to receive them" as they had been promised would be the case.

"

They there applied to the President, who informed them that Mrs. Pattison had no land to dispose of, but that if they would become settlers his Government could make them a grant.

Price

They were accordingly forwarded by his orders to a district three weeks' journey from Bolivar on the Caura River, which may have formed a portion of the

Eden," as the description given by Grant" but which turned out to be another " Robinson of the office in America Square and of the settlement itself might be founded on that of Mr. Scadder's office in New York and his Eden on the Mississipi.

Mr. Robinson saw Mrs. Pattison at Bolivar, and has heard that she and Mr. Pattison, whom he has never seen since he left England, are now in the United States, where

0

16278.-404. 95.-5/86.