NEW PLYMOUTH.

Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 239, 14 February 1855, Page 5

NEW PLYMOUTH.

(From tl>e Correspondent i>f the " Soulhorn Cross.") By this time vuu will have got Major Nugent back again : hi.-, report will not probably see lii« light for some lime yet, but the substance I can pretty well guess, and !oel little hesiuiiou m

cuttin<>- out his report for him. In the first pltice everything tbut could be tortured into a reason for* not sending troops was readily advanced against any opposite reasons; and secondly, he carefully abstained from giving any opinion, and which I think would not have been so carefully withheld if favourable to the wishes and feelings of the majority of the Settlers. My opinion shortly after his arrival,and which is still the same,'is that he had his instructions how to frame his report before he left Auckland; and though you and all thinking meu in your Province must feel contempt for a narrow mindedness that will look on with old official Government coolness at the Province of New Plymouth being rubbed out, there is little doubt here, in my own mind, and in that of the public generally, that the policy has been from Sir George Grey's time to the present to ignore and keep back this place as much as possible; besides which I beliere Wynyard's weak mind capable of being influenced against our small Province, which has been and ever will kick against his little brief authority used without reason or judgment. I forget if I told you that all we have to fear here is from what are termed the friendly natives ; they find themselves in trouble from advocating the sale of the land, relying on the support of Government, which has always manifested itself in encouragement of various kinds ; appointment of salaried assessors, &c, besides the Resident Magistrate (Cooper's) concurrence in the proceeding that led to Rawiri's death. They now find themselves likely to be driven in a corner, and they plainly say, when they are, they will drag us into it. Hardly a day passes that the two parties are not firing at one another's stragglers ; and the natives you meet in town, in the stores, or in the country, are generally well armed. As a natural consequence, settlers are fast leaving, or preparing to leave ; mortgages are being foreclosed ; all property is fast falling in value; all currency is walking out of the place ; cattle, horses, and sheep are going overland to Whanganui. Imlay has started with 80 head of cattle, unsaleable here now. Vickers has sent some horses, others are going with sheep; and if it can be done on fair terms I hear that between 200 and 300 wethers are to be sent by the " Nelson" to Auckland. Nothing will save this Province but the feeliug of security that the presence of troops only can impart. Wiremu Kingi of 'Waitera, who says he is neutral, does not wish to see troops, and will protect the settlers from any attack, is insiduously complicating difficulties by letters to tribes,"containing false statements, that may induce them to punish the natives opposed to him on the land question, and in favour of the sale of land, and months ago wrote to Taratoa, near Manewalu, asking him for arms and amunition, which have been refused. His last application has been to the Ngatiruanui tribes to join him. By the bye, the Southern Cross states Ihaia's death is much regretted by the sealers; be is alive, and will be kicking if his enemies trouble him again, and was not even wounded last time.