My dear McLean, The steamer is again in from the South without bringing us any intelligence of you. I drop a line by the return mail addressed to you at Wellington which place I suppose you will visit at some time or other. I am sorry I cannot send you an amended deed of cession under the Native Reserves Act -- But I will forward copies of minutes on your letter which will show how the case stands. I will as soon as possible submit for approval an exposition of the purposes of the N. R. Act - to be printed on the back of the Deed Meanwhile I imagine something of the kind might be appended in writing, in each case as required. I enclose a private letter from McKay - and one from Mangonui - these are all we have for you - You will get a letter from the Governor relative to Te Teira's offer of land - which H.E. thinks should be followed up we are now writing to Teira to the effect that the Governor will not forget his promise to buy the land nor allow any interference by parties having no claim upon it but that the details of the matter are left to the officers of the Govt. who are appointed for the purpose, yourself, to wit, and Parris - It seems that your presence at Taranaki is indispensable to a proper management of the business - What a pity you can be only in one place at a time. I write in haste, but there is little news to tell which can be made the subject of a letter -- You should see the Auckland papers of this month -- Carleton -- is gone mad on the late despatch of the Secretary of State. The Native department as usual is denounced as the cause of whatever is wrong in the country and threats of inciting the natives to make common cause with the settlers to compel the enfranchisement of their lands are held out. Rogan is at Whangarei -- and will next go to Omaha -- That latter is becoming an awkward case Kiri has been turning off a Settler who recently purchased an allotment there -- Rogan, from what he has heard of the case is disposed to regard Kiri claim to a reserve there as not so unfounded as was supposed -- it seems the surveyor's line was stopped before reaching the land Kiri claims -- The difficulty now is to preserve the dignity of the Govt. in the matter and to admit the claim after its positive rejection when urged by letter - I hope Rogan will manage to avoid the appearance of being coerced into a recognition of the claim. I have had to give an official opinion on Sewells scheme and have stated my views on the question. I should have been glad to have avoided this Your opinion ought to be on record -- However we have hitherto been pretty much together in our views and I hope the native department will not he found committed to anything very absurd in the present instance -- If you wish it I will send you copies of any papers on the subject. We are all well at Onehunga. Office matters go on tolerably well but at present I am sorry to say there is a great arrear of work -- The correspondence increases weekly - I saw Douglas last week, he was looking well - Believe me, My dear McLean Faithfully yours Thos. H. Smith Auckland Aug. 26th 1859