EARLY DAYS IN MANAWATU.

Manawatu Herald, Volume VII, Issue 260, 16 April 1889, Page 2

EARLY DAYS IN MANAWATU.

(Continued.) Exactly fifty years ago some energetic and influential merchants and others of England, appearing to conaider the advantages New Zealand offered warranted them in an effort to carry out a thorough scheme of colonization. Accordingly, they formed a company called ''The N«tr Zealand Company," their great op-

Ponents being the Exetef Hall an Missionary Party. Notwithstanding this then powerful opposition, then scheme met with much favor witl many of an adventurous turn. The first step of the company, before . purchasing 1 any land from the Natives, was to despatch in two yes- , sels, the Tory and Cuba, Colonel Wakefield, as Agent-General, a powerful staff of surveyors, the late Major Heaphy, an artist, &c, and a great variety of goods for purchasing from the Natives lands suitable for settleuieut. The company then advertised eleven hundred sections of ; land for sale in the first settlement, consisting of one town acre and one hundred country acres, at £1 per acre; seventy-five per cent to bo al- \ lowed to the purchasers for cabin passages and the passages of their servants. The choice of selection was drawn by lottery in London at tbe company's office. By Septem ber, 1839, s^c vessels were loaded | 'with passengers and cargo, and ~w ere hurried away by the company from a fear that the Government might, through the influence of the Missionary Party, forbid the> departure of the vessels. Five of these ▼easels made quick voyages for those (days, the sixth, The Adelaide, not arriving until March, 1840. The passengers by the earlier-arriving ships located themselves at the Hutt, but on The Adelaide making her appearance, it was decided to hold a meeting to settle the site for the town.. After many opinions given and arguments used on the matter, it was finally agreed that "Brittania " should be the name of the town, which was afterwards altered to Wellington. (To be Continued.)