Catalogue description Correspondence, Original - Secretary of State: Letters from 'offices' (Government...

Correspondence, Original - Secretary of State: Letters from 'offices' (Government departments and other organisations) and individuals on matters relating to the West Indies. Correspondents and subjects are as follows: Offices: House of Commons (sugar duties, requests copy of despatch from the Duke of Wellington to Lord Bathurst dated 9 July 1813); Admiralty (letter from admiral objecting to Lieutenant Fitzgerald's plan for keeping an armed vessel at Havana as tender to the Romney, conveyance home of army invalids and convicts on the same vessels, despatch from Admiral Sir E King relating to disposal of liberated Africans and making St Helena a depot for them, request for meeting about steam packet arrangements); Agents (claim of West Indian colonies to surplus compensation money, proposed reduction of duty on foreign sugar, asks if emigration will be permitted from other parts of the African coast besides Sierra Leone, sugar duties); Commander in Chief (distribution of troops, Lord John Russell's views on the Romney detachment shall be attended to, increase of number of officers of West India Regiments and regulations on period of service, etc); Privy Council Office (quarantine regulations, approval of second charter of Colonial Bank, further on quarantine regulations, amendment of contract ordinance, enrolment of letters patent granting privileges to Mr Crosley in the manufacture of sugars); Board of Trade (conditions under which duty on imports may be sanctioned, grant of supplementary Colonial Bank Charter to be suspended until Board of Trade reports, duties on goods imported into the West Indies); India Board (employment of 'hill coolies' in British colonies); Foreign Office (copies of despatches from British diplomats at The Hague, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Suriname and Havana relating to Africans emancipated by Courts of Mixed Commission, requests memorandum on the 'free system' in the West Indies, sends slave trade papers A & B, requests details of 'negro education' adopted in West Indies); Board of Ordnance (estimates of expense of additional barracks for Windward and Leeward Islands will be prepared, employment of convicts of African or mixed race in the West Indies or Bermuda on ordnance works is impracticable); Treasury (termination of proceedings of the Compensation Commission, requests copy of circular relating to apprenticeship of liberated Africans, arrangements for mail until the steamer service starts, copy of rules for disposing of captured Africans, regulations as to firing on vessels in case of quarantine, disposal of surplus compensation money, requests information on Mr Turnbull's salary, payment of bills drawn by Mr Turnbull, cannot decide on question of violation by the Colonial Bank of their charter without report from Board of Trade, expenses of stipendiary magistrates, application of Mr Colquhoun relating to the use of surplus of compensation fund, list of special justices serving in the West Indies, disposal of surplus of compensation fund, payment of bill drawn by Mr Turnbull for £175, Mr Turnbull's bill not accompanied by usual certificate, rules for fixing salaries of officers temporarily administering a government, payment of Mr Turnbull's salary, report from Trinity House on establishment of lighthouses in the West Indies, reply of Admiralty to Royal Mail Steamship Company on proposed deviations from the contract); British and Foreign Anti Slavery Society (protest against removal of Africans from Sierra Leone to the West Indies); General Post Office (expense of postage falling on the British consul at Havana, detention of the mail); Royal Mail Steam Packet Company (recommends erection of lighthouses by colonial authorities); Board of Customs (delivery of a box of deeds); Individuals: D St Andre, French Consulate General (enquires about certain individuals [two letters], sends documents for forwarding [all in French); Cox & Company (requests usual certificates for payment of salaries [five letters]); Crowder & Maynard (asks for reasons for not proceeding with the second West India Bank charter); Martha Clyde (recovery of money left by Mr Gogne); Monsieur Chasseride (requests copies of documents relating to emancipation [in French]); Thomas Downey (asks how he may recover certain property); William Hamilton (letter for Mr Young of Barbados, requests appointment as director of the botanical garden at Ceylon and employment for Professor Desbaux, requests an appointment, asks if he may correspond through the Colonial Office, sends letters to be forwarded); John Innis (proceedings of the Colonial Bank in violation of their charter in issuing notes payable in Venezuela and St Thomas); Jules Lechevalier (British emancipation [in French]); Mrs Madden (papers made over to Mr Clarke by Dr Madden); J McLeish (property left by Mr McLeish in the West Indies); George Merry (complains of conduct of Mr Turnbull towards some persons wrecked at Cuba); George Reid (enquiry about currency); P H Salmon (asks to which island J C Fernan has been appointed a magistrate); Mrs Stephen (encloses letters from Mr and Mrs Turnbull, calls attention to nonpayment of her debt by Mr Turnbull, reports that debt is paid); J J Sturz (remarks on relations between the UK and Brazil); R Steward (asks if there is any change in the currency); F F Whitehurst (his scheme for the improvement of agriculture); T Walsh (enquires about Michael Curren); Thomas Welsh (enquires about Daniel Welsh); W Wright (asks when the steamers will start running); West India Association, Liverpool (states that labour is difficult to procure since the ending of apprenticeship and asks for emigration). Bound at the end of the volume are Colonial Office memoranda and circular despatches. Memoranda are on: stipendiary magistrates, failure to find any law officers' opinion said to have been given in 1826 on the right of British subjects to hold slaves in foreign colonies, expediency of reserving a power of legislating for the colonies by Orders in Council. Circulars cover: returns of vessels adjudicated in Vice Admiralty Courts; conveyance of mails between the termination of Mr Stewart's contract and the commencement of that of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company; appointments of admeasurers of shipping; regulations for incurring and accounting for expenditure relating to liberated Africans; possible benefits of surveys of Crown lands: 'Negro education'; law officers' opinion relating to seizure of Spanish slave ship; General Assembly of Leeward Islands; request for return of stipendiary magistrates; request for reports from stipendiary magistrates; request for return of appointments 'of trust and confidence' made in last three years; firing on vessels to enforce quarantine; reduction of Parliamentary grant for education, with report from Mico Charity; equalisation of import duties; code of rules for prisons in England and Wales; further correspondence from Mico Charity; issue of rates of wages for the information of persons wishing to migrate from Sierra Leone.