440 



THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



the intervention or the influence of the British authorities, 

 whom, therefore, it was your duty to satisfy before leaving the 

 country. Had this course been followed, the character of the 

 British Government would not have suffered, and the adjust- 

 ment of the dispute would, in all probability, have been effected 

 at a comparatively small outlay. 



" Your letter, and that of Captain Speke, will be forwarded 

 to the Government of Bombay, with whom it will rest to deter- 

 mine whether you shall be held pecuniarily responsible for the 

 amount which has been paid in liquidation of the claims against 

 you. 



" I am, Sir, 

 " Your obedient Servant, 

 " (Signed) J. Cosmo Melvjll." 



5. 



"Sir, — I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of 

 your official letter of the 14th January, 1860. 



" In reply, I have the honour to observe that, not having 

 been favoured with a copy of the information on the same sub- 

 ject furnished to you by Captain Speke, I am not in a position to 

 understand on what grounds the Secretary of State for India in 

 council should have arrived at so unexpected a decision as re- 

 gards the alleged non-payment of certain claims made by certain 

 persons sent with me into the African interior. 



"I have the honour to observe that I did not know that 

 demands for wages existed against me on the part of those 

 persons, and that I believed I had satisfactorily explained the 

 circumstances of their dismissal without payment in my official 

 letter of the 11th November, 1859. 



" Although impaired health and its consequences prevented 

 me from proceeding in an official form to the adjudication of the 

 supposed claims in the presence of the consular authority, I 

 represented the whole question to Captain Rigby, who, had he 

 then — at that time— deemed it his duty to interfere, might have 

 insisted upon adjudicating the affair with me, or with Captain 

 Speke, before we left Zanzibar. 



" I have the honour to remark that the character of the Brit- 

 ish Government has not, and cannot (in my humble opinion) 

 have suffered in any way by my withholding a purely condi- 

 tional reward when forfeited by gross neglect and misconduct; 

 and I venture to suggest that by encouraging such abuses seri- 

 ous obstacles will be thrown in the way of future exploration, 



