SYDNEY
28th December, 1837
Mr Lord,
I had the honour of addressing a letter to your Lordship on the 2nd of September 1835 on the subject of my position as a Judge of this Colony, which letter I forwarded on the same day in duplicate to His Excellency, Sir R. Bourke, for transmission, in compliance with the regulations of the Colonial Department. I was afterwards informed by His Excellency that he did forward my letter to Your Lordship, one part by the "Spence" which sailed from hence on the 27th October and the other by the "Florentia" which sailed on the 15th November.
Both these vessels arrived in England in due course and therefore I might presume that my letters have reached Your Lordship, were it not that I have not been honoured with any notice of it, and I am led to an apprehension which I do not entertain without peculiar disappointment and pain, based, as I have been by the command of his late Majesty, at so great a distance from the seat of Government and addressing the head of my Department of a subject of vast importance to myself that my letter was not brought under Your Lordship's notice.
Under this apprehension I have instructed my brother, Edmund Singer Burton, Esquire, of Daventory, to lay my case before Your Lordship and to implore in my name for such a relief as may be in your power to recommend Her Majesty to grant me.
It is only necessary, therefore, for me now to state to Your Lordship that my brother is fully authorised by me to act for me in my absence and that I shall be satisfied with any arrangement he shall assent to on my behalf.
I have the honour to be Your Lordship's obedient servant,
W.H. BURTON
Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales.