[From State Papers SP 48/2 p166]

Report from Lt Governor Dawson to Secretary of State Lord Suffolk

Three years of arrears of pay for Civil Establishment

Isle of Man 31st Octr 1778

My Lord

{noted as Sent to Treasury}

I cannot express how much pain it gives me to intrude upon your Lordship's time, I am sensible that to divert your lordps attention from affairs of high importance and to wish to fix it to the concerns of this Island may be deem'd presumption more especially since Govr Smith has so amply explained the grievances & inconveniences we labour under & while his proposed scheme of improvement is still under consideration nevertheless the inconveniences dayly arrising from the non payment of the civil Establishment and its being near three years in arrear is productive in every Department of such bad consequences and is so constantly lamented and complained of that I should not do my Duty did I not repeat to your Lordp our joynt and humble request that some remedy may be apply'd to an evil which while it continues renders it impossible to carry on the Government with that Dignity order and propriety so essential to civil Govert.

The Salleries of the Revenue Officers with those of the Civil Establishment do not I am well informed amount to the annual receipt of the Revenue on an average calculation for ten years last past. I am aware that the Recr Genl may urge that the contingent expences of collecting the revenue and the extra allowances to the several officers being annualy first discharged the arrear of the civil Establishment can not be avoided; I should be extremely sorry My Lord to petition or request for any indulgence that might be prejudicial to the Officers in another department, but surely the allowing the Officers of the Revenue a priority of payment even the non resident and desiring the remainder of the Revenue may be apply'd to the subsistance of his Majesty's Servants, before any extra demands are discharged cannot with justice be objected to, since it is absolutely necessary that his Majesty's Officers & Magistrates should be subsited and it is of the grateful consequence that their employment should be esteem'd valuable by them as whenever they become insignificant the duties of then will be negligently perform'd, and they will loose that dignity and respect so particularly necessary an essential to their office.

The inconveniences which I suffer from not receiving my Sallery altho' very severely felt & with difficulty supported I shoud not have troubled your Lordship with had I alone been a sufferer, but when the whole civil Department is in the same predicament and when the Officers make known their difficulties to me and expect I should endeavour for their relief it may not be improper to add that there is no one who suffers equal to myself being obliged from my Station to incur expences which neither my Commission in the Corps of Engineers or my private fortune will support unassisted by the Sallery of Lt Governor. How far our grievances are capable of relief I must humbly submit to your Lordship and once more beg leave to repeat that did I not forsee that it woud soon become impossible to carry on the Govt with any degree of order if some remedy be not apply'd I shoud not at this time have presumed to trouble your Lordship on the subject.

I am &c Richd Dawson

Notes