e it to be made generally known, that
hereafter the tenure of colonial offices held during Her Majesty's
pleasure will not be regarded as equivalent to a tenure during good
behaviour, but that not only such officers will be called upon to retire
from the public service as often as any sufficient motives of public
policy may suggest the expediency of that measure, but that a change in
the person of the governor will be considered as a sufficient reason for
any alterations which his successor may deem it expedient to make in the
list of public functionaries, subject, of course, to the future
confirmation of the sovereign.

"These remarks do not extend to judicial offices, nor are they meant to
apply to places which are altogether ministerial, and which do not
devolve upon the holders of them duties, in the right discharge of which
the character or policy of the government are directly involved. They
are intended to apply rather to the heads of departments than to persons
serving as clerks, or in similar capacities under them. Neither do they
extend to officers in the services of the lords commissioners of the
treasury. The functionaries who will be chiefly, though not exclusively,
affected by them, are the colonial secretary, the treasurer or
receiver-general, the surveyor-general, the attorney-general and
solicitor-general, the sheriff or provost marshal, and other officers,
who under different designations from these, are entrusted with the same
or similar duties. To this list must be also added the members of the
council, especially in those colonies in which the legislative and
executive councils are distinct bodies.

"The application of these rules to officers to be hereafter appointed
will be attended with no practical difficulty. It may not be equally
easy to enforce them in the case of existing officers, and especially of
those who may have left this country for the express purpose of
accepting the offices they at present fill. Every reasonable indulgence
must be shown for the expectations which such persons have been
encouraged to form. But even in these instances it will be necessary
that the right of enforcing these regulations should be distinctly
maintained, in practice as well as in theory, as often as the public
good may clearly demand the enforcement of them. It may not be
unadvisable to compensate any such officers for their disappointment,
even by pecuniary grants, when it may appear unjust to dispense