CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 43, 31 December 1842, Page 171

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the Nelson Examiner. Sir — In your last week's paper, I find it stated, among the Auckland extracts, that the owners of the schooner Speculator have heard of her safe arrival at fort Nicholson. I beg to contradict that report; having returned from Wellington but a few weeks since, where no account of her had been heard, nor could I, by making the strictest inquiries among the coasters, gain the slightest intelligence of her. My motive for addressing you is to prevent the painful disappointment which such unfounded reports are calculated to produce among the friends of the passengers in the unfortunate ■ vessel, to some of whom I have written, informing them of the probable melancholy wreck. The schooner Speculator, 40 tons, Leitch, roaster, left Auckland in the latter end of July, for Mercury Bay, Port Nicholson, and Nelson, with passengers and frieght. The passengers were Messrs. Wardrup, Nathan, Barrow, Mr. and Mrs. Brown, and. two French Catholic priests. I am, sir, Your obedient servant, Nelson, Dec. 29. J. Joseph.

To the Editor of the Nelson Examiner. Sib — " Save us from our friends "is an old, but no less true, adage, and it is fully borne out by the conduct of some of the ill-disposed colonists of Port Nicholson, in spreading malicious reports concerning this place among some of the proprietors of land, bound to this place by the George Fyfe, informing them that, if they thought Wellington bad, Nelson was ten times worse, thereby causing them to be so disgusted with New Zealand altogether, that they have either sailed, or are about to sail for Valparaiso immediately. That Nelson is equal, if not much superior, to Wellington, will, I think, be acknowledged by every impartial man who has seen both places. We have here coal and limeworks in actual operation, and the flax has been tried By some Scotchmen who came out in the New Zealander, which has realized their most sanguine expectations. Has. Wellington anything to compare with this ?. No: and therefore the exhibition of that jealous feeling of rivalry towards this settlement which has been so often displayed in their abuse of Auckland — certainly to their own great disadvantage. If they had put their hands to the plough and, like good colonists, set to work immediately they got their land, instead of squabbling amongst themselves and railing against the Colonial Government, they would have been in a much more prosperous state than they are at present. But if they think they will injure us by crying down the capabilities of this place, I wish them no greater punishment than that they may, as I sincerely believe they will, find themselves egregioußly mistaken. Let all those persons who left England with the intention of settling at Nelson come here and judge for themselves ; tbfty will then see the folly of those who have suffered themselves to be influenced by the evil reports of men who endeavour to establish their own reputation by destroying tb»* 'A their neighbours. Having visited most of the settlements on the Northern Island, I can safely say, .without exaggeration, that Nelson is decidedly the best grazing district in New Zealand; and aince Mr. CotterelTs favourable account of the interior, and the prevalence of the belief that a .-larger tract of level land yet remains unexplored, many settlers here are not altogether without hope that Nelson will some day rival— jaot-in abuse— even the self-styled principal settlement in New Zealand. Yours, &c. J. T. Bram well. Nelson, December 29.

Mr. O'Connell's Matoramt.— Mr. O'ContfeE has announced that he does not again assume /: the office of lord mayor; and thus those sanguine a^eings who calculated so complacently on trans--ferring the burden of his maintenance from their shoulders to those of the citizens of Dublin, have that cup of consolation dashed from their lips for the present. He assigns as his reason the impropriety of holding civic office while so exclusively engaged in political agitation as he «*ys he intends henceforth to be.