[From Home Office File HO 98/68 ]

Thomas Gawne (Acting Attorney General) requests salary 29 December 1815

Copy of a Letter addressed to A. Lushington Esquire on the 29th Decr 1815

[some text lost in binding]

Sir

I duly received your Letter informing me that the Lords Commrs of his Majestys Treasury in Answer to my Memorial are of Opinion that any claim for the performance of the duties of Atty General in the Isle of Mann, should be addressed to Mr Frankland; who should remunerate me, out of his own salary.

I beg leave to state in pursuance though i have made diligent enquiry for Mr Frankland who cannot be seen. And is (as I am informed) in a state of health incapable of transacting business from which it is feared he is not likely to recover. Nor can I find any person authorised to transact business in his behalf. It is therefore impossible for me to get any remuneration there; [] ; his own Salary for 1814 (as I understand) being yet unclaimed.

Under these circumstances, and feeling it cannot be their Lordships wish that any one of Government should be unpaid. I again [] to address you - And earnestly to request that [you] will give me an Order on the Receiver General of the island to pay out of mr Franklands Salary such Annual Sum from the Date of my Commission a copy of which is herewith inclosed as you think reasonable which I presume cannot be [less] than the one half of the £300 a year allowed [by] the Order of Council of the 5th July 1808 [] which is in no wise adequate to the the Mu[] =aughly and important duties that I have to perform and journeys to take - And surely he cannot complain, when he receives that for doing nothing. Ans when I am for the same bearing the burthen of those duties.

As my sole business in Town is the have an Adjustment of this matter, And being much wanted in the island your early attention will greatly oblige.

Your &c Tho Gawne

====== Tho Gawne to John Beckett [under-secretary of State]

Douglas 3rd February 1816

Sir

Altho under the necessity of returning to the Island on Public business without waiting the result of my application to the Treasury for a remuneration for having performed the duties of Attorney General of the Island for above two years I must continue to urge my Claim and founded on Justice as it is. I did hope that I should not have experienced much difficulty - yet I am sorry to remark that I can get nothing done not even a reply to my letters notwithstanding the most earnest entreaties.

In my letter to you of the 17th Jany I stated specifically what I considered my Claim to be as I did in like manner to Mr Lushington and I now again repeat. That circumstanced as I am with Mr Frankland I ask'd no more than to divide the £300 a year the Atty Generals salary from the 31st of July 1813 the date of my Commission which you considered as not unreasonable considering the duties I had to perform and of the costs attending which, I laid before you. But which I am unable to get from Mr Frankland or to obtain any communication with him, his state of health (as I am told) renders him unfit for any business - all the salaries of the Civil Officers became due on the 5th [Jany] and are paid, save the Attorney General's which is for these last two years remaining un[claimed on] the charge of the Collector and Comtroller of Douglas - and as it cannot make [any] difference to Mr Frankland by whose order I am paid - ~I humbly imagine that no difficulty can arise in directing the Collector and Comptroller of Douglas to pay me, [] is all I ask and which I presume one line of your pen to the Treasury could procure.

I trust to your love of Justice to excuse this further intrusion - and your known puntuality in business will I am sure induce you to do me Justice.

I am & Tho Gawn

Added (scrawled) note by ?Beckett

Acqt Him that the Lords of the trsary have decided that he was entitld in their opins [] & I apprehend that directions have already been given to the paper [?proper] office at Douglas to pay him that sum.

Notes