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WELLINGTON.

We published on the 28th ult. the Independent's account of the scene betwsen Col. Mc Cleverty, and the Provincial Secretary. The following account from the Spectator gives an exquisitely ludricous turn to the whole affair:'; " Whatever extravaganciesjthe]unbappy infirmity of temper of the Provincial Secretary may lead him into, few we imagine of those who were present at the meeting of the Council at the Athenaeum on Thursday could have expected to witness what then took place. Before giving an account of Thursday's proceedings, however, to render them more intelligible to , our readers out of Wellington, it will be necessary briefly to advert to the previous occurrences which occasioned them. At the meeting of the Provincial Council on Tuesday,: iii answer to a question from Mr. Lyon as r to what arrangements had been made by the Government for providing a Council Chamber in the place of the building destroyed % the earthquake, the Provincial Secretary took occasion to make a deliberate attack, as unfounded as it was malignant, on Mr. Hamley of the Ordinance and Col. McCleverty' commanding the troops, charging them with inhumanity and cruelty, the former for refusing to the Provincial Executive the use of the Government house, the latter for witholding from the settlers the tents belonging to the military. Shortly after the Council broke up Colonel M'Cleverty was informed of what had occurred ; he at once sought out Mr. Fitzherbert and expressed to him in severe terms his sense of the unjustifiable attack which the latter had made on him. •.-•'..'■-.. » : The motionofbreach;of privilege which: Mr.; Fitzherbei't chose to found on this affair, occupied nearly the wliole of-Thursd ay's proceedings in Council. In an elaborate paper which heread to the Council and in which he had carefully got up his case, after detailing Tuesday's* proceedings, of which we have furnished an outline above, he gave the following account of what passed between Colonel M'Cleverty'and' himself—- ::../. ./'v.. He burst upon me with ' I-am"just told, Sir, (I think he said by Mr. Stokes, but on this point I am hot positive) that you have made charges against me injCounoil about want of humanity. Shameful, Sir, shameful! Is it true ? What have you to say, sir ?' T replied. 'It is true that I publicly complained of your conduct. I considered that I was justified in making the remarks I did-, and shall repeat them, if necessary. But let me tell you, Sir, I will not be intimidated by you or any other body from doing my duty as a Representative of the People.' After a few touches of description, as whete he says the Colonel flourished his whip, ' po s tured his right nether portion on the left flap o his saddle, the next moment he dexterously shifted his left nether portion to the right flap,' &c, and that he (Mr. F.) kept his own whip slightly elevated, < bztt still not so as io frighten the Colonel? he proceeded— " He (the Colonel) suddenly roused himself and shouted,' Don't speak to me, Sir! Never speak to me again, Sir.' I retorted. 'I never asked to speak to you, it was you who wished to speak to me.' I bawled out "the latter* part "of. the sentence, for he had already wheeled round his black charger and placed a waggon between us. No sooner had my words reached him than he seemed irritated by the retort, and turned round his head and literally screamed out in a fury, ■«- You, Sir, you of ail men, you of all men,' you ought to be ashamed of.yoursplf, you ought to.be transported, you ran away from the earthquakes last time, you ought to have been convicted of felony.' I am not absolutely certain as to the word ttanspdrted, I am quite positive as to the other expressions."

After reading this paper, the Provincial Secretary continued iv a speech of considerable length, in which his rage and abuse seemed to be divided between the Editor of the Spectator, Col. M'Cleverty, and the; 65th Regiment. Supposing Col. M'Cleverty to have received his information of 'what" took place in the Council from the Editor of the Spectator, Mr. FitzherI'bert said the Colonel should have written to him " to know whether the report made to him was correct,'' especially as it emanated from a suspiciousquarter,''~and talked of the Colonel's " taking from so foul a source the wicked poi-: son." Of cditrse.these expressions were cheered by Mr. Revaris, and re-echoed by Mr. Fox, who, in his remarks, said that the -Colonel had received his information " from the mouth of a malignant tale-bearer." ;It turned out, however; that the; Editor of the Spectator was not "the foul source " from which the report issued ; "the poison came from another quarter: the Colonel had acted on information received from Mr. Bell, a member of ihe Provincial Council, and a colleague of Mr". Fitzherbert in the Executive Council. Mr. Bell said, in explaining the circumstance so far as he was connected with -them,— *M was riding up Ihe beach, when I met Col. M'Cleverty, and entered into conversation with him -, we were afterwards met by Mr. Stokes; some remark passed to the; effect that some very strong language had : been used by the Provincial Secretary towards Mr. Hamley and Col. M'Cleverty. The Colonel turned to me, when I observed,—l regret to" say that Mr. Fitzherbert said that great inhumanity had been shown by Mr. Hamley and 1 Col. M'Cleverty to the settlers.'" . '.'-'•. That Mr. ;Foxo and Mr. Fitzherbert should have a rancorous hatred; towards the Editor of the Spectator is perfectly.natural ;—after having for so many years exposed the underhand manoeuvres, the jobbing, the dodges of these "shallow," unscrupulous,and corrupt politicians, it is quite natural that they should feel a strong antipathy to the Spectator— the same sortof antipathy which a thief feels towards one of the detectivie police. As far as we are concerned, we are quite content to be abused in such company, and by such persons; and we hope it may be ever our good fortune to enjoy the friendship of men who stand so high in the esteem and regard of the settlers as Col. M'Cleverty, and be subject to the enmity of such persons as Mi\ Fitzherbert," Mr. Fox, and Mr. B,eva.ns~Malis displicerelaudari est: But it is something new to be told, as we are now told, by these—members of the Executive —that the freedom of speech which they claim as their unquestioned privilege is to degenerate ihtossuch licentiousness as this—that all sorts of unfounded charges and calumnies are to be . uttered in Council against those who are absent, and not in a position to defend themselves, and that such a course is to be justified under the plea of freedom of speech..- It is something new and unheard of that a Provincial Secretary-— drest in a little brief authority-—shall get up in the Council and make a, deliberate statement affecting the character of some of the worthiest persons in the Province,—that this is to pass unquestioned as his privilege, and that any allusion to this by any one out of the Council is to be regarded as the work of "a malignant tale-bearer." This claim of a privilege thus set up has, we believe, no foundation in law,— even as regards the British House of Commons it has been successfully resisted on some points, the assumption, therefore, of its existence in a Provincial-Council''(the."creature .of an Act of Parliament which can always be altered or repealed) betrays the most lamentable ignorance in those who make it; and it will be found to be only another instance of insatiable grasping after arbitrary power, of which there are so many examples, by the men who for the present have the direction of affairs in this Province,— another instance of the petty tyranny which they attempt to exercise— : in the name of the people. We cannot attempt to give all that Mr. Fitzherbert said on this occasion, and yet there are one or two bursts of provincial eloquence that ought not to pass unrecorded, one or two choice flowers of his rhetoric that ought not to be lost to posterity,—that we cannot willingly let,die. Miuiy years since, when animadverting on Mr.. Fitzherbert's conduct at a public meeting, we descrided him as the Thersites of the colony, half bully, half buffoon,—and his public conduct on' all occasions has shown how well he deserves the character we then gave him. Take from his kist public exhibition the following illustrations.

In commenting on what had passed between Col. M'Cleverty and himself, Mr. Fitzherbert : said—-' "If poison had been instilled into our ears from the nether hell, I could not think that a man could have so little restraint over himself as to rush into so towering a passion. So help me God, Go\. M'Cleverty addressed tne as if I I had been the most abject slave; if I had been tbe dirt under,his feet, he could not have done worse. Thank Heaven he had placed a waggon between us, or I would have surely torn him limb from limb ns I now stand here. But I had my passions entirely under my' control; but if I hadbeen near him, I would have done what I have said." The mere words spoken, without the gestures, .the tone, the temper exhibited, convey but a feeble notion of the scene. It was lamentable tosee an old man,quivering with rage, boast of the restraint he exercised over his passions; it was more lamentable still to hear bim profane the awful name of the Deity after such a fashion as this. And the waggon that so providentially interposed between the Provincial Secretary and the object of his wrath,—that was the means of preventing such desperate deeds,—it is said was after all apocryphal,—a Deus ex machind, expressly contrived to prevent this tearing limb from limb. No doubt Mr. Fitzherbert thought, like Bully Bottom,—"that was lofty "—-yet tho.se who beard him inclined to the opinion of Bottom's friends ;—" We must leave the killing out, when all is done." The other illustration is of another stamp. "Suppose," said Mr. Fitzherbert, " and I hope I may be pardoned for the illustration, suppose I was Lord John Russell, and suppose the Colonel had been the Great Duke, if Lord John Russell had made in the House of Commons certain remarks which were unpalateable to the Duke, and after having retired to his ! club (to wit, German Brown's), snch an altercation had ensued between them, I know one consequence that would inevitably have ensued. The next day the Duke, great as he wa«, would have ceased to hold any commission in the army." :■ There was something so irresistibly ludicrous in this comparison that the audience fairly lost their gravity. It was but one step they were asked to take—from the sublime to the ridiculous—but they could not take it. The wildest flight of the imagination could hot suppose the supposition,—they could not realize any thing so ridiculous as Mr. Fitzherbert had supposed, and the appeal was received with hearty unrestrained roars of laughter.—But said we not rightly? Is not this the language of a Ther- . sites—half bully,half buffoon ? It is unnecessary to defend Col. M'Cleverty and the 65th Regiment from the aspersions of Mr. Fitzherbert, Both Mr;. Bell and Mr.Ludlam declared Mr. Fitzherbert's attack on Tuesday to be perfectly unjustifiable, and this expression of opinion on their part met with a ready sympathy from the crowded attendance of settlers present. But when Mr. -Lud.lam, in a manly straightforward way denounced such conduct, and said he did not think it right that they should sit within those walls to blacken the characters of the absent, and that he considered such a course to be a cowardly proceeding ; the ! applause which followed from the numerous set- ; tiers who were there shewed how entirely they | disapproved of Mr. Fitzherbert's conduct; and the Speaker's faint muttering about clearing the gallery, only tended to increase the scorn which the proceedings of the Council had excited. This attack, we repeat, has been perfectly unjustifieible, as it is most unfounded. This Avassufficiently proved by the official correspondence which was read. So far from any want of humanity either on the part of Col. M'Cleverty or the officers of the 65th regiment towards the settlers, it is as well known as it is cheerfully acknowledged and gratefully appreciated, that the gallant colonel has on all occasions shewn the greatest desire to assist them, that he has won the esteem and respect of settlers of all classes by his ready sympathy with them, and by those kindly qualities which have always marked his intercourse with them. That on the occasion of this recent visitation he has been most active in rendering assistance, and on the very day this attack was made by Mr. Fitzherbert the officers of the 65th regiment had given up their tents for the use of the settlers. Ever since the earthquake the soldiers of the 65th regiment have been most actively employed, by the direction of the military authorities, wherever their services were required, in clearing away the ruin

caused by its effects; and in the present state of the Province and the want of labour it is difficult to say what could have been done but for the ready aid they have afforded. And so it has been on all occasions since the regiment has been stationed in_the Province ; whenever assistance has been required either by the community or by individuals, assistance has always been cheerfully given; and we sincrely trust the cordial sympathy and intimate and close relations which have always existed between the ''settlers and the military will not be disturbed by these proceedings of the members of the Provincial Executive. It may be as well to note in passing, that while in their official Organ the Provincial authorities affect to ignore the earthquake, and to the great disgust of the community treat it as a most light and trivial occurrence, yet are they ready, under the plea of this visitation, to divide and distract the community with the most serious dissensions of their own creating. •"..'At'the meeting of the Council yesterday, Mr. Fox brought; up the report of the Committee appointed on his motion, in which they require Col. M'Cleverty to apologise to the Council, and in the event of his not doing so, suggest that copies of their report should be forwarded to the Commander in Chief, and to other influential quarters in England. We have no doubt, if these men persist in their present course, that an address will be presented to Col. M'Cleverty by the intelligent portion of the community expressive of the high regard they entertain for bis public arid private character, and entirely repudiating these most unworthy proceedings. —Wellington Spectator.

Permanent link to this item
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/LT18550310.2.9

Bibliographic details
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Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 246, 10 March 1855, Page 4

Word count
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2,467

WELLINGTON. Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 246, 10 March 1855, Page 4

WELLINGTON. Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 246, 10 March 1855, Page 4

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