"I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,
"T. F. ELLIOT.
"E. W. WATKIN, Esq."



I close this narrative of the Pacific Transit Scheme with the despatch
of the 1st May, 1863, which summarises the proposals made and generally
concurred in. These long discussions were not abortive, for they led up
to the great question of the buying out of the Hudson's Bay Company,
without which neither successful Confederation, nor its child the
Canadian Pacific Railway, would have been achieved in this generation.


"DOWNING STREET,
"1_st May_, 1863.

"SIR,

"I am directed by the Duke of Newcastle to state that he has had much
satisfaction in receiving your letter of the 28th ultimo, enclosing the
heads of a proposal for establishing telegraphic and postal
communication between Lake Superior and New Westminster, through the
agency of the Atlantic and Pacific Transit and Telegraph Company. These
proposals call for some observations from his Grace.

"New Westminster is named as the Pacific terminus of the road and
telegraph. His Grace takes for granted that if the Imperial Government
and that of British Columbia should find on further inquiry that some
other point on the coast would supply a more convenient terminus, the