LETTER 11.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue I, 16 July 1842, Page 75

LETTER 11.

To the Governor of New Zealand. Sir — Whatever cause of indignation at the conduct of your government the people of these settlements may have, believe me, those who really possess influence are not disposed to join in the vituperation which has been heaped upon you lately from some quarters. This mode of remonstrance is neither effective nor justifiable. The blow aimed recoils on the striker, and the guilty, like the bar upon the anvil, derives strength from the stroke. You shall hear the truth, sir. You shall know, if you are yet ignorant, what is the real sentiment of your fellow-citizens; but nothing that is unworthy of an English gentleman shall proceed from the pen now making generous war upon a noble adversary. You may, perhaps, wince, you may, perhaps, shrink, possibly you may yield — not to these weak words — but to the force of Truth ; but you shall have no cause to reproach one who now for the first time declares himsslf your enemy with having forgotten that you are a brave officer and a well-bred gentleman, or with having been unmindful that the station which you fill, although unworthily, entitles you to distinguished respect, while it exposes you more than most other men to the severe onlook of inexorable justice. But, sir, if the time has not gone by, the scene is too remote, for regarding men in great places with any vulgar veneration. It is not the purple and fine linen, the splendour of retinue, or the profusion of a household, that can command a colonist's admiration. Administer your government wisely and honestly; be just, and you may rely most surely on the attachment of your fellow-citizens. They do not fear your resentment. They know you have no real permanent power beyond what they shall choose to accord to you themselves. At the worst, they will but distrust you. It is well that governors of remote provinces should sometimes be reminded what manner of men are those for whose benefit they are entrusted with the administration of affairs. We are plain, downright men ; not fond of showy republicanism, desiring peace and order, not given to change the existing state of things, unless there are in it very glaring abuses ; but we know our worth, we respect ourselves. Neither do we see any more virtue in a Governor, or in a Sovereign, than belongs to the good service he renders to the state — we pay him no other homage than Algernon Sidney, or William Perm, or George Washington, would in their day have claimed, or rendered, or received. We discard all other distinctions — honouring worth and deferring to capacity, but owning no man for a ruler, paying no respect to mere authority. Such, sir, are the men among whom you stand in the place of foremost citizen — a high and honourable privilege, due to public virtue alone. Such are the men who now, as with one voice, demand that you shall give an account of your stewardship, "for thou tnayest be no longer steward." Lay not the flattering unction to your soul, it is not a noisy band of democrats and demagogues who call for your dismissal : a whole community, composed of all sorts and conditions of men, varying infinitely in opinion, creed, and character, upbraids you with one accord, for that you have abused your trust, abandoned your high duties, and proved yourself unequal to the faithful discharge of your commission. You have neglected the interests of the<people of this colony. You have done more — you have laboured to subvert them. You have aimed a heavy blow at the independence of our magistrates. You have attempted to shackle the liberty of printing. You have shaken confidence in the stability of our property. You have departed from the spirit of your instructions. You have visited us with unjust imposts. You have amused us with ordiniinces, while at the same time you were endeavouring to make them of no effect. Lastly, you have suffered an evil influence to pervade your councils, to the great detriment and danger of the public weal; and therefore the people committed to your charge accuse you as a public enemy, whose presence among us does not consist with the safety of this colony or the welfare of its inhabitants. Neither your high place, your commission, nor your , dignities, can exempt you from that liability to retribution which you share with the humblest among us. Indeed, the situation which you fill exposes you to the severer penalty. Come what come may, our purpose shaU be effected. God forbid that violence should be employed to resist injustice; but, if ever matters should come to such a pass, beware the end ! for when rebellion ceases to be treason, they are traitors who made rebels none.

I assert that you have neglected the interests of the people of this colony. This appears in many ways ; not least in the length of time you have suffered to pass without having visited these settlements, except in the shape of very grievous exactions. We could, indeed, dispense with your actual presence, and that most willingly; but we have a right to look for some more substantial proofs of vigilance for our interests than are afforded by what closely resembles studied contempt. If you had given us the protection of law — if you had appointed officers to administer the law — if you had shown; in anyway whatever that you were at least aware of our necessities, and desirous of sup*

plying them, our present accusation had not been preferred. But, sir, you ought to have known that neglect of a whole community committed to his guardianship, is no venial offence in the Governor of a province. It. is a high and heinous crime.

We have now been settled here nearly twelve months, and are still without a court of civil and criminal jurisdiction. A sister colony has laboured under a yet heavier grievance. During all this time we are deprived of the prescriptive right of our countrymen to trial by a jury. Meanwhile, the consequent loss, hardship, and impunity to fraud and crime, are almost beyond endurance. What evil have we done that we should be thus severely visited ? I acquit you, with all my heart and soul, of so atrocious a crime against our peace and safety as somg scruple not to accuse you of. The base \v3| ever impute baseness. The crowd are prone to yield a ready credence to the corrupt motives of their superiors. I am no vulgar enemy. I well know you have too generous and too noble a heart to plot the ruin of an obnoxious settlement, by denying its inhabitants a court of law until its jurisdiction would be of no avail. You are incapable of such infamy as designedly to make us wait for the means of recovering our debts till they bad been already incurred, desiring, as in mockery, that our merchants should first become bankrupts and then suitors. But the fault of your government lay in this — that, by withholding a court from us till now, instead of providing for one (as a wise policy would have prompted) before our arrival in the colony, you have given a direct temptation to fraud and felony — you have aimed a stab at the vitality of our commerce — you have heavily discouraged our trade at the very moment when it stood most in need of all support. These have been the consequences of your neglect; and who shall say that such neglect is not a crime ? Are you aware, sir, of the character of those who play the rdh of insolvent debtors in these settlements ? They are not honest, unfortunate tradesmen, deserving sympathy : they are a description of vagabonds peculiar to .colonies. Generally they are known by the expressive name of beach-combers — for the most part runaway sailors, both officers and seamen; wretches without a single scruple to restrain them, ignorant of the very meaning of principle; reckless, depraved, brutalized, desperate ruffians. These fellows would cheat for the mere love of cheating, or from the force of instinct, even if it were unprofitable; but, being a very gainful trade, and carried on with perfect impunity, every species of atrocity is practised, by which decent settlers are outraged, honest tradesmen ruined, and the more considerable merchants grievously injured. Such, sir, are the desperadoes to whom the vices of your government are fast yielding us a prey. It is in vain that our police magistrate exerts himself with all his energy — and his exertions are unremitting — to protect us. Indeed, the whole bench is distinguished for activity. It is said that one of our magistrates, with that zeal which renders him so meritorious a man, is in the habit of reversing, on a Saturday night, the search of the cynic, and that he goes about with his lantern, groping for drunken men. Having discovered some reveller haply unconscious of everything, the son of virtue volunteers to take him home. This offer being uususpect.ingly accepted, the sinner, conducted by the * saint, is safely lodged in that satire on a gaol, where he piously believes himself in the bosom of his family. Oh, happy people ! oh, fortunate land ! where no rulers approach and no prisons deter, and where the victim of confidence finds a friend in the apostle of morality ! These pleasant and novel proceedings, bearing the stamp of original genius, in some measure compensate us for the neglect of our Government. But then, this is a mere fortuitous advantage. We enjoy the peculiar privilege of possessing a magistrate who combines in his^pm person the functions of justice and jailer. It does not happen to every colony to be inhabited by a Tod. There are at this moment no less than six inmates of our gaol ; and, considering the inducements offered by ,the Government to perpetrate crime, there is a reasonable prospect of several more. Of these, two are now waiting to take their trial for transportable offences, as soon as it shall please the Government to apply funds to their removal, or to give us a local cour^t. The consequence of this arrangement is a virtual defeat of justice. The magistrate, when he has power to do so, must adopt the frequently dangerous practice of summary conviction. He must enhance the dangers of that practice by convicting summarily in 'many cases which can only be properly decided by a jury. While 1 write, a villain, who had robbed his employer under circumstances of peculiar aggravation, is sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment with hard labour — a punishment, in this place, ludicrously farcical. When the gaol is filled, what are the pol.ee to do ? They cannot arrest criminals, for where are they to put them ? How will persons be found to prosecute, when they know they must incur the inconvenience and lost time of a voyage to Port Nicholson ? Thus magistrates, constables, prosecutors, and witnesses, are forced into the necessity for winking at offences. Here, then, we have a system of impunity, so perfect in its machinery as effectually to preclude the restraint of crime. The wonder is, not that we have so many rogues, but that we have so few. Governor of New Zealand 1 For neglect like this, you shall answer to God and your country ! [To be continued.] ' [We regret that we have not room for the whole of oar correspondent's communication this week : the conclusion shall appear in our pert. — Ed.]