Queen Victoria to Sir E. Bulwer Lytton

BRITISH COLUMBIA

Osborne, 24th July 1858.

The Queen has received Sir E. Bulwer Lytton's letter. If the name of New Caledonia is objected to as being already borne by another colony or island claimed by the French, it may be better to give the new colony west of the Rocky Mountains another name. New Hanover, New Cornwall, and New Georgia appear from the maps to be the names of sub-divisions of that country, but do not appear on all maps. The only name which is given to the whole territory in every map the Queen has consulted is "Columbia," but as there exists also a Columbia in South America, and the citizens of the United States call their country also Columbia, at least in poetry, "British Columbia" might be, in the Queen's opinion, the best name.

Footnote 44: Stating that objections were being made in France to the name of New Caledonia being given to the proposed colony between the Pacific and the Rocky Mountains.