Transcription Page 72

may dispatch for the same purpose.

I have the honor to be
Sir,
Your Honor’s most obedient Servant.
J. Macdonald
Honorary Secretary to the
Committee.

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[Annotation]

The parties
to be informed that
the whole of the cor-
respondce. on this subjt
is probably by this time
laid on the table of the Legve
Council & will be printed - that
[crossed out: that] the Govt. havg adopted & still con-
tinuing to adopt what it considers the
proper measures this its own officers to rescue
the female in question cannot do more than say
that if any person or persons offered their services to assist
in the prosecution of the end in question, [crossed out: that] such services
could only be taken advantage of on the condition that
they were performed under the express direction [crossed out: & or] of the Govt
in the manner which the Govt. might judge expedient. - That the
[insertion: temper] absence of the Superintend was at no time an obstacle to information
being given to any respectable person on the subjt. in question, on proper applica now being made at the Supdt’s office.
C. J. L

Transcription Page 74

(Copy)

Colonial Secretary’s Office
Sydney 19th. September 1846

Sir,
I do myself the honor to acknowledge
the receipt of your letter of the 4th. Instant,
enclosing a Copy of the resolutions passed
at a Public Meeting held at Melbourne
on the 2d. of this month for the purpose of
devising means for the rescue of a female,
supposed to be forcibly detained by one
of the Gipps Land Tribes of Natives, and re-
=questing that the articles mentioned in
your communication may be supplied
for the use of the expedition to be undertaken
for the above purpose.

Having submitted your letter to the Gover-
=nor I have the honor to apprise you, that
His Excellency lost no time in making
enquiry upon the subject alluded to.

A perusal of official correspondence
laid before him, has shewn His Excellency
that the assumption upon which the pro-
=ceedings of the parties on behalf of whom
your application has been made has been
grounded, “that no effective measures had
”been adopted to ascertain the positive truth
”or otherwise of such rumour by the Local
”Government” was erroneous, for it appears
that in the month of May last when first
the report of the European female detained
by

J, Macdonald Esqr.
Melbourne.