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

Jackson landed here from the During on the 13th May 1850, having engaged with the commissioners of Sable Island about the 10th for three months @ 60/. per month, and when Graham left on the 1st Sep following, I shipped Jackson as foreman at 70/. per month, the same as I had promised Graham, provided the commissioners would consent to pay the extra 10/. and he being very anxious to get his wife and family on the Island offered me to make any reasonable deduction of his wages to compensate for that privilege if allowed and I wrote to the Commrs what had been offered and accordingly his wife and two children were sent on in the Daring and landed here 4th May 1851. He remained here agreeable to the above proposals till April last when the house in which he lived being burned down on the 17th. I on the 19th sent him to the foot of the lake Station with a clear understanding that he was not to remain there but would be removed from that so soon as I could get things arranged as I wished them and he is there yet.
You are aware of the disturbance between him and the men when you came here in August 1852 and that I interfered on his behalf and I then proposed to him that from that time to the next spring, he should have 70/. per month as foreman and that he should pay 20/. per month board for his wife and three children and that as he had had no settlement with the former commissioners I woudl advise that they settle with him at the same rate, to which he at once and readily assented. Since he has been at the foot of the lake he of course is entitled to no extra pay nor should he be charged anything for his familys board. But during thie time he was at the principal station his family were a great burden and his wife never done one hours work for the Establishment but done washing, and sewing, for the men and they paid her for it. Consequently he should be settled with for that time strictly as agreed upon by him and me. Any deviation from that will be refered to by others and there will be no end to the trouble that will follow. I think that 20/. per month board for his family first of three and then of four is so moderate that no objection should be heard and especially when he willingly agreed to pay that sum.