1882 with letters of introduction from John Hamilton Gray, one of the Fathers of Confederation, and Joseph Trutch, the first Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, both men in favour with Macdonald. After a visit to Ottawa to present himself directly for this project, Dunsmuir went off to Scotland. While in Scotland, Dunsmuir received the news that the provincial government had chosen the Vancouver Land and Railway Company controlled by Clement for the job. Dunsmuir was surprised that Clement would take the contract without a cash grant in addition to the land and commit to building the railway to Seymour Narrows, near Campbell River. When Clement and his company failed to come up with the necessary financial security, Macdonald quickly moved to accept Dunsmuir's terms. Settler rights The court ruled that this grant did not entitle the railway to dispossess existing settlers. The company applied for compensation and received a further grant of between Crown Mountain and Seymour Narrows. In 1883, the British Columbia government signed a contract with Dunsmuir to build a railway between Esquimalt and Nanaimo in exchange for the same grant of land that Clement had negotiated, amounting to , plus a cash grant of $750,000 from the federal government. Based on an average value of $10 per acre for the land the E&N received, it cost the government $626,660 per mile to build the railway, which when complete was in private hands. The railway was given a massive amount of old-growth forest. Proceeds from the land grants helped build Craigdarroch Castle. The grant amounted to almost 10% of Vancouver Island and included mineral rights and all known coal deposits. The land grants to the E&N railway from 1884 to 1925 amounted to 20% of Vancouver Island. The company was to receive a grant with the following boundaries (Muir Creek is about west of Sooke):On the south by a straight line drawn from the head of Saanich Inlet to Muir Creek, on the Straits of Fuca: On the west, by a straight line drawn from Muir Creek, aforesaid, to Crown Mountain: On the north, by a straight line drawn from Crown Mountain to Seymour Narrows: and On the east, by the coast line of Vancouver Island to the point of commencement.The grant was facilitated by BC's introduction of the Settlement Act (An Act relating to the Island Railway, the Graving Dock and the Railway Lands of the Province)