CO129-056 - Sir Bowring - 1856 [6] — Page 371

34

to Hoor

Majesty's Government an asquic vence

in the sweeping terms of your application = "

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I am also desired to remind you that

Lyour not one individual in twenty of the purchasers of land at the sales or grants authorized by Captain Elliott or M. foliuston fulfilled the prescribed terms of those sales or grants, that it thence followed that the greater number of the sales and grants might have been declared to be null and void, and

"the land again put up to public competition, when its value had been greatly enhanced, on the whole by the late Sales by Auction; that that enhancement is proved in well by the result of those Sales or by the undeniable and notorious circumstance that perhaps not more than three-fourths of the money expended and laid out in this Colony has been attended since the publication of the Notifications already quoted in this letter, or in other words, since the island became available for bona fide possession of the British Crown. But the Treaty Government willingly waived some of the discretion left to them (under the peremptory restrictions on alienations), to disturb arrangements consistent with the general interests of society and the well-being of the Colony, the former authorized.

Page 369

At the same time His Excellency The Governor in Council distinctly and unhesitatingly declares, whatever may be the decision Her Majesty's Government may be pleased to come to on appeal, he should esteem any arrangement, grounded, however remotely, on your