THE HISTORY OF CANTERBURY.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 639, 22 February 1870, Page 4

THE HISTORY OF CANTERBURY.

♦ [WSLLIXGTON INDEPENDENT.] The Wairanpa Mercury laments that Wairarapa is not Canterbury, and tells its readers how nearly it was so— rin fact asserts that it would have been, had not the founders of the latter settlement pre? ferred the big plains of the Middle Jsland. The Evening Post takes upon itself to correct its contemporary, and enlightens the public by an historical narrative, setting forth how Mr Godley on his., arrival here mot Mr Weld, who told him of the Canterbury plains, and persuaded him to go $,nd look at them— and so they came to be selected. The writer in the ijfaejwngr Post is. not quite at home on the subject, in fact evi4e n tly knows nothing about it. Neither Mp G<>d^y nop Mr Weld had anything to do with the matter. TJie site was, selected and finally fixed hy quite other parties, and longljefore Mr Godley ever s,et foot in New Zealand, The folJowin^ aj?e the, actual facts as related by one who was cognisant of the transactions the time, and can speak of his own perr Bonal knowledge. ' ■ The person entrusted by the Canterbury Association will the duty of exploring for a sitti for their new settlement was Captain Thomas, formerly a settler in .the colony, and who returned to it from England in October- or November, 1849 i $s, the Principal Surveyor of the Canterbury settlement, ' accompanied, by Mr T. Cass (now of Ohristchurch), and Mr O. Torlesse (a nephew of the late E, Gibbon Wakefield, now dead). Capta,in Thomas's selection, however, was to be subject to the approval of Sir George Grey, Bishop Selwyn, and Mr Fox, the then principal jigent of the New Zealand Company. The Wairarapa district had b§e.n strongly pressed o.n Captain Thotnas'3 notice by certain parties, in England, but as the instructions sent out with him directed that thie district see. jted should hftve a good seaport of its own, and not have any considerable number of natives in it, it was evident from the first that Wairarapa was out of the question ; indeed, that it was only in the Middle Island that the necessary location could be looked for. Captain^ Thomas and Mr Fo^, being both pretty well acquainted with New Zealand geography, kriew that there was T\Q place but Canterbury likely to meet the requirements, of their instructions, Stud they determined to proceed thither without delay. Such was the state of our commercial marine, however, in those days, that they had to wait nearly a month before they could get a vessel of »ny sort to convey them there, when at last, some time in December, they charr tered the cutter My, a fifteen ton coaster, commanded by Captain Swan, accom^ panied by Messrs Cass, Wills, and TorJess> ear'y in December, arrived at. Port Cooper, the name by which thp harbour was then known. The only European population in what is now the entire province of Canterbury were the two prothers Deane, Mr Qeor-ge Rhodes, the three, brothers Greenwood, and two or three families, the Gibbies and Mansons, and others who worked for those squatters at and about where Lytteiton and Christchurch now stand, and a few other families, chiefly French and German, at ■Akaroa ; where Paddy Bruce, well known to old whalers, Kept a pretty tidy hotel, and • made travellers as comfortable as they could wish. The explorers made a pretty fair examination of the country, examining the central plains as far as the hills, and, deciding on the site of the; town of Lyttelton (not without considerable doubt whe.th.er it, should not be placed at the head of the harbour above Quail Island), and finally walking across Banks' Peninsula to Akaroa. The writer remembers now the grotesque figure of Capt. Thomas as, after a good dinner off a fat roast suckinji-pig at Mr George Rhodea's hos, pitable house in Puru Bay, he commenced $he ascent of the steep hill behind, a bandana round his 3iead, aud his trousers slung over his shoulders at the end of his walking stick. It was January, and the •weather was decidedly hot. A: day or two before, a uoble dog that accompanied the party on the plains, dropped down dead of coup de soleil; ■. A few weeks afterwards Qapt, Thomas and Mr Fox proceeded ■to Auckland in the sqho.oner Harlequin (whioh of terwards went to San Francisco with a cargo of timber and greens), to. lay the result: of their explorations before Sir George Grey and Bishop Selwyn. The former, it is paid, "tried all that he knew," to cajole or force Messrs Thomas and Fox to. locate the settlement at or near Auckland, bui they were, wide awake ; and Bishop Selwyn also, who had just had: a peep of the Cantereury plains, threw his weighi; into the scale, and the- peremptory condi-r tions of the • instructions relative to natives settled the. question. Canterburywas fixed to, be where Canterbury is, and Capt. Thomas returned at once to Port Cooper to commence: the surveys aud make preparations for the reception of the expected immigrants. Buildings for •the latter- were speedily erected, and under the extremely able ,-a.nd energetic direction of Ca.pt.- Thomas: and , Mr Cass. the surveys went on at a rapid pace,. The work was very far advanced when Mr Godley, some months. after,' arrived in the colony in the Lady Nugent^' and certainly neither he nor Mr -Weld had the smallest influenco whatever in the of the site. The chances of Wairarapa. were never more than infinitesimally. small r and . the... Merctu-y. has very s'eader grounds for its Jeremiad. ; The merits of the Port Cooper conn tr-v had, as early as 1840 o? '41, been brought under the notice of Colonel Wakefleld, the : then Qo,mpany's agent, as a suitable fite foj? the Nelson settlement, in a, written report by the late , . Captain ; Danieil and Mr George Dwppa, who were the first English settlers who, had visited the locality from Wellington, It would probably have been the site of Nelson, but for the unj ns Unable refusal of .Governor Hobson, who insisted on certain conditions imposed, if we recollect aright, on the New Zealand Company by the late Lord Derby, and who ; thus drove. the settlement of Nelsor\ inio a corner where for many years it had a hard struggle for existence., When Otago .was to be selected, the Port Cooper site was examined by Mr Tucke.tt, the exploring surveyor appointed by the New Zealand Company for the purpose, and who was accompanied by Dr., now Sir David Monro, Mr Bar-, nicoat, and others. Why they" passed over the Canterbury Plains js hot known: ; but some of the party wore decidedly what is termed " crotchetty ; " and it is probable that like other events in the history of nations, "temper" or "cuu-

ceit" may have, decided a point against the dictates of comn>on sense.. There is no doubt th&t in the than circumstances of the colony, the selection of the more remote Otakou aid the rejection, of P r Cooper were mistakes, The explorers so little appreciate.! either locality as a site for an agricultural gettlentent that they asserted their belief that wheat wouldn't ripen there | The many hundreds -of reaping and threshing machines which may this day bp haard buying and click t ing between the Hnnmui and the Mataura, are a curious but practical ref utatiqn uf the prediction.