33054-002299

Copy 21

Sydney, 9 December 1833

Sir,

I received your communication of the 7th instant, and beg to offer you the following remarks in reply.

In stating that I received no satisfactory account from you in reply to my letter to you from Bathurst, I did not mean to insinuate that you were not at that time using all proper means to gain information respecting the loss of my money letter, although those means ought to have been employed several weeks earlier than they were, but I meant that I had received from you no satisfaction for the loss of my money, and therefore that it was necessary for me to adopt decided measures for the recovery of it.

In answer to your objection to the statement in my letter to the Colonial Secretary of what passed in your office

James Raymond Esq.

Postmaster General of the Colony

on the occasion of our personal interview, respecting your having failed in making any enguiry at the time you received Mr Lambert report of the loss of the mail which contained, my money letter in question, I shall quote your own words from your letter of the 7th instant as follows “ not being apprised of your letter being a money letter at the time [I had not included it in the investigation-underlined] "

and you then proceed to confirm the correctness of my statement (which very statement you asperse in the first paragraph of your letter as being contrary to the fact) of your having neglected to institute an enquiry respecting the loss of the mail at the proper time by actually giving your reason why you did not attend to Mr Lamberts Report viz "I specifically stated at the moment that Mr Lamberts conduct of the Office was so irregular that I had no dependence on his report

23 Your letter of the 7 instant, therefore, although offensive as unjustly charging me with a misstatement of fact, is very satisfactory as containing a written confirmation of my principal ground of complaint in my letter to the Honorable the Colonial Secretary viz that you did omit to take active measures in consequence of Mr Lamberts report of the loss of the mail containing my money letter in question -

Having thus I trust given you a satisfactory explanation in answer to your first query, and I think a tolerably conclusive reply to your second and last and sincerely hoping that the subject of our present correspondence may not be productive of any permanently unpleasant feeling -

I am, Sir

Your most obed Servant

Stephen Owen