Auckland 16th. November 1868 My dear McLean, One line to thank you for your kind hospitality to me, and one to condole with you on that which I know must afflict you both at heart, and in your head too, as Superintendent. I am indeed not without the hope that fewer deaths and more escapes than we expected may have been ere this, verified to you at Napier from Poverty Bay. But the future still looms darkly upon us. A few months, doubtless, will unveil our prospects - at least, so far as to determine whether we shall be left the option between submission to our fate, or a war of extermination. I am sanguine still that the councils of the natives will remain so far divided, as to be our protection. But surely the Colony must have a permanent bush-ranging force available for service at any posts of threatened danger, instead of a hasty levy of a few hundred men extemporised from the waifs and strays of rejected idleness, that may be found upon our streets. How little I thought, when I parted from you, at the junction of those roads, on Wednesday last, that the ''Lord Ashley'' would meet with such a freight of sorrow, as we found on the Tawera schooner, before we got out of the Bay! We had a smart passage to Auckland, but I missed your luxurious bath and home comforts. Please give my kind compliments to Miss McLean, and believe me to be Yours truly (Signed) G.A. Arney. To:- D. McLean Esq.