Sir,—I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter enclosing the resolution of the Chamber of Commerce, and I beg to return my grateful thanks to the Chamber for the honour they have done me.

The success of the million loan very likely appeared all the greater by comparison with the last financial operation we had to make. That the Colony should have been able only three years after giving, £120 of stock for £97 10s. in cash, to place a four per cent, loan at £98 12s. 6d., shows how much its credit had risen in the time. I am very grateful for the Chamber's appreciation of my own part in the business; but you may depend upon it that the real secret of our success was the confidence of investors in our good faith, and the belief in our determination to maintain economy and sufficient taxation as the true security of our finance.

As to the steam question, I confess to having devoted more pains to it than to anything else, except finance. We can hardly measure the good that would come to us from a properly established direct line, but the indispensable condition of any permanance in such an enterprise is that it should pay, which means that we must be willing to give reasonable help to it at first, though we ought to allow no monopoly of our trade to be set up.

With regard to my paper on the public debts, I could not see without great pleasure how widely attention became attracted to the wonderful facts I have attempted to record. A few minor points were disputed at the time with some acerbity, and I was prevented by a tedious illness from defending them as I should have liked; but it will not be long before I vindicate, in a second edition, the conclusions which had been impugned.

I thank the Chamber heartily for a recognition which has now to be added to the generous support and confidence I have always received from the Government. The time of my engagement is passing fast away, and my successor will soon be chosen. I trust it may be his good fortune, as it has been mine, to get, in what must always be a difficult and laborious work, not only the approval of the Ministers, but kindness and encouragement outside the official circle such as the Chamber has extended to me.—I have, &c.,