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Date: 1865-05-12
By: Charles Fisher
Citation: Despatch from Charles Fisher, Esq. to the Provincial Secretary (12 May 1865) in Journal of the Legislative Council of the Province of New Brunswick (1866).
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Fredericton, May 12, 1865.

SIR,—In reply to your Note of the 12th instant, I have to state for the information of His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor, that my assent was never requested to any change in the Resolutions agreed to by the Conference held at Quebec in October last.

I have before me a copy of the Resolutions laid before the Canadian Parliament, and of those transmitted to His Excellency, and the only difference I can discover is in the terms of the 24th Resolution. I cannot now remember what took place in the Conference when the Resolution passed, nor do my Minutes show, as it was of very secondary importance when compared with many of the questions which were discussed.

When the Resolutions were revised I was not well, and was compelled to leave the room before they were all disposed of. I was not present when the revised copy, engrossed on parchment, was signed by the Delegates; but I signed alone some time afterward, upon the assurance of Colonel Barnard, the Secretary, that it was a true copy of what had been agreed upon.

I know that the Canadian Ministers are of opinion that there was a mistake in copying out the Minutes, or that it was not the real intention of the Conference to leave the electoral districts for Members of the Federal Commons to be adjusted and altered from time to time by the Local Legislature, as a Representative might find himself deprived of his constituents by a body he had no power of influencing while he was attending to their interests at Ottawa.

I have, &c. (Signed) CHARLES FISHER.