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Pe a ee See Ba ene ea De SOT See Sn mre ETT

14 The Fraser River Mines.

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this case; still, Your Excellency will not uphold the right of any man
to sacrifice the life of his fellow-creature over a gaming and drinking
table. 1 also enclose the verdict of the Coroner’s Jury for your perusal.
I have had the prisoner in confinement in Fort Yale Prison on account
of the heavy rains, and unfit to expose him and the Officer to so
much wet.

I received two Letters from Your Excellency forwarded by Mr.
Tennant which shall have every attention.

I have notified all parties that the sale of town lots will commence
by your direction, and I am preparing the leases accordingly. Do you
intend Mr. Allard and Mr. Yorke to have free grants, or are they to
be on the same terms as other parties ?°°

The land opposite Fort Yale I have received for mining purposes,
according to your decision.*® Water will be conveyed on this flat
from New York Bar Creek,*® round the ridge of rocks above where
Your Excellency camp’d opposite Fort Yale. The cost of fluming
and conveying this water, from information that I have obtained, will
not be less than five thousand dollars. A Company of miners have
taken up the water and will commence the work early next Spring.**

McGowen and his party at Hill’s Bar are all quiet, but insist on
holding the bank or flat claims as well as the bar. I have done all 1
can with the limited force at my command, and I have checked them
from working up to the present.

On Emery’s Bar the same difficulty I have to contend against;
the claimants on the bar have the assurance to demand back from the
river to the foot of the Mountain, a distance of nearly two miles, and in
consequence of my pointing out to them and others the absurdity of
such grasping propensities, I am grossly insulted and considered a
nuisance. I will, however, perform my duty and yet act with modera-
tion. With regard to the petition forwarded and published at Victoria,
I can assure Your Excellency it is a fabrication from beginning to
end.*2, McGowen was the mouthpiece of it all, and when I marked
off the claims no person was allowed to interfere either way, and
there was no objection made at the time by any of the miners, nor
would it if McGowen had not interfered afterwards.

(38) The Governor had in his address to the Yale miners indicated the intention of granting
leases with a right of pre-emption. See ante, p. 2. Mr. Allard was the agent of the Hudson's
Bay Company at Yale; and Thomas York, who was then mining above Yale, was the father of the
first white child born in the colony. Mr. Hicks's handling of these leases is severely criticized
by Judge Begbie in paragraph 14 of his letter, February 3, 1859, post, p. 38.

(39) See ante, note (20) and note (21).

(40) New York Bar was just above Fort Yale, on the opposite, or left, bank, and near Lady
Franklin Rock.

(41) Mr. Hicks’s handling of the water rights was as loose as his handling of the land
leases, and led to much dissatisfaction and trouble. He did not hesitate to record an interest
for himself in some water partnerships.

(42) See note (24), ante.