CO129-010 - Sir Henry Pottinger - 1843 — Page 575

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of yesterday's date in answer to mine 40:128 of the preceding day.

My object in writing that letter was simply to prevent any entanglement of the Stress and Coal depot on the temporary wharf which might be to the good public purpose.

I should be glad to have the receipt, should it become necessary, of instructions from England to request you to have them removed to some other location.

I believe His Excellency the Naval Commander in Chief is perfectly aware that the decision of Her Majesty's Government will be shortly expected, and I am therefore surprised to learn, admitting provisional orders to be necessary on a matter which will then be set at rest by the highest authority, that such provisional orders have not been left behind by His Excellency.

It has been long since reported to Her Majesty's Ministers that anything like permanent arrangements in this Colony must remain, as it were, in abeyance until explicit Instructions on the points that have been referred shall be received from England, and in my letter of the 18th Instant to your address I explained how I propose to act on the receipt of those instructions.

In one case it will rest with the Naval and Military Authorities to do whatever they think best. In the other I have made up my mind that Her Majesty's Government shall at least comprehend that the onset of any further delay in laying out this Colony does not rest with me.