CO129-011 - Sir John Davis - 1845 [1-4] — Page 265

money transactions are settled. In Novt & obtained the temporary aid of Mr. Bird, the Accountant in the Superintendent of Trade's Department. For three weeks Mr Bird tried but in vain to prepare the September Quartert account from the Accounts and Vouchers rendered by the different Departments in July and at length obliged to put the account together in the best manner which the Vouchers would permit, but sufficiently distinct to show the final balance the Quarter. At the suggestion of Mr Bird,

on order to obviate in the December Quarter Recount Current the difficulty of tracing to what purposes monies drawn by the different Departments had been applied, I wrote on the 19th November a circular to the Head of each Department, & enclosing furnished me by the Lords of the Treasury Extract from the Instructions Paras 6. Treasurer's Circular 19th Novr 1844. inging a compliance with them, and, 6. stating that should the Vouchers in future not be "found in accordance with the prescribed form" they would be returned for correction." I was informed that this request would not be complied with; that it was my duty to trace out the appropicetic of the money drawn by the Heads of Departments that all I had to do was to obey the written authority 1254 of 19th Dec, 1844 165 Eight Wee. 1844 418th Wet 1844. Para. 6. to authority of the Governor by paying money to any person who might present to me a Warrant bearing His Excellency's signature. The respected: Chief Magistrate sent my letter and its enclosure to the Governor, /19th December 1844/ complaining that I had assumed that the Chief Magistrate's Office was "subservient to that of the Treasurer I received from you a mild rebuke for having addressed this request to the Gentlemen at the Heads of the Departments for "an apparent assumption on the part of a Co-ordinate Department of authority over another and I received an official letter from the Auditor of which the enclosed is a Copy

I forbear adverting further to the painful position in which I was thus placed and which subjected me to the charge of obstructing the public business by hesitating to pay money on the sign manual of the Governor unaccompanied by the necessary forms and Vouchers; while the Warrants on which these payments were demanded were never, until the commencement of the present year, made out as distinctly ordered in the Colonial Secretary Department - after the Accounts Abstracts and Vouchers to which they referred had been finally approved by the Auditor; but were generally prepared by my clerk, or sometimes by the individuals claiming money.