[From Home Office File HO 98/77 ]

Lt Govr Smelt to Lord Viscount Melbourne 14 Nov 1832

Castle Rushen Isle of Man November 14th 1832

My Lord

I think it right to inform you that my health for some time past has been declining and although up to this period I have been able to discharge the duties of my Office yet I feel myself from bodily weakness daily becoming less adequate to attend to public business, and my medical attendants are of opinion that my life cannot be protracted many weeks long.

Under these circumstances I should have requested you immediately to have tendered my resignation to His Majesty, but having expended all my private fortune in maintaining the public appearance requisite for the King's Representative in this Island, for which my Salary was not sufficient : I find myself wholly without the means of support from the moment I cease to be Lieut Governor, and must even trust to the sale of my effects to meet the expenses of my funeral.

I am now in my eighty fifth year, I have served His Majesty and his Predeessors for nearly seventy years, and have fulfilled the duties of Lieut Governor of this Island for the last twenty seven years without quitting it. I have therefore to suggest that for the short remainder of my life I should be appointed Governor in Chief with my present Salary and permission to remain in the Government House a removal from which would not only be inexpedient but absolutely impossible.

Should His Majesty be pleased graciously to accede to this proposal (of which I cannot allow myself to entertain a doubt) I would request that a Lieut Governor be sent down with all convenience dispatch, in order to obviate the inconvenience which must accrue from the interruption of public business which would take place should my health become rapidly worse.

I have the honour &c C Smelt Lt Govr

Notes

Lt Govr Smelt died 28th November 1832. The Manx Sun, Tuesday, 4th December 1832 carried the story as:

Death of His Excellency Col. Smelt Lieut.-Governor of this Island.

It is with feelings of the deepest regret that we have this week to announce the death of our revered Lieutenant Governor.

After a painful illness of several weeks, his Excellency expired on Wednesday last, at eleven o'clock, in the 85th year of his age.

His remains will lie in state at Castle Rushen on Tuesday and Wednesday the 4th and 5th inst., from 12 to 3 o'clock, and will be interred in St. Mary's Chapel, Castletown, on Thursday, the 6th, at 12 o'clock, noon. .

Colonel Smelt was appointed Lieut.-Governor in June 1805. During the period of his residence here, now upwards of twenty-seven years, the mildness and efficiency of his government met with the approbation of each successive administration of his Majesty's Government. Whilst he was a firm upholder of all the just rights and prerogatives of the Crown, he never lost sight of the true interests of the Island. In him the people found a sure and steadfast friend; the laws an upright, firm, and impartial administrator. Never since the death of the good Bishop Wilson has the Island had to mourn the loss of a more justly esteemed and popular character.

"Let this Island speak the rest."