33054-002203-0001

32/468 January 1832

Attorney Generals Office
13th. January 1832
Sir

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of
Your letter of the 11th instant, by direction of His Excellency
the Governor, transmitting to me an Extract of a letter
from the Commandant at Moreton Bay, requesting to be
informed, how far he has power under the Vagrant Act
to confine as idle and disorderly persons who have no
visible means of existing honestly, men who have become
free of their Original and Colonial sentences at that Settlement, but are unavoidably retained there subsequently
for the Want of immediate means to convey them to
Sydney, And requesting my opinion on this matter.

In reply I have the honor to state for the information
if His Excellency, that as a doubt has arisen as to the
application of the English Vagrant Acts to this Colony,
And I have in consequence, in pursuance of His
Excellencys directions, prepared the Draft of an Act in
Council to extend the Vagrant Acts to this Colony, which
is likely soon, if approved by His Exceilency, to be sub-
submitted

To The Honble
Alexander McLeay
Colonial secretary