note: transcription publicly contributed - please contact us with comments, errors or omisions

Refugee Negroes as he may think fit to deliver into my charge, but as the whole of the Department at Melville Island have been discharged under an Order from His Excellency Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, on the 20 of June last, and the Negroes now provided for, under an order from His Excellency to the Commissionary General, I beg leave to state to you that I do not consider myself in any manner acting in that Department, from the date above states, and further I must beg to [remind?] you that I have never had the [illegible] of these people nor have I ever made requisition for issues of Provisions, or for Expenses incurred for their maintenance, or support, having acted solely under the direction of His Excellency Sir