The New-Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume 4, Issue 212, 10 June 1848, Page 2

The New-Zealander.

Be just and fear not: Let all the ends thon uuifo't at, be tliy Countiy's, Thy God's, and Truth's.

SATURDAY, JUNE 10, 18 48.

I The letter of September, 1 816, addressed by j the Port Nicholson settleis to the New Zealand Company, demanding redress of grievances, and compensation for declared wrongs, has led to j an acrimonious disputation, which, howevei much it may expose the Company's malvcisations, will, Aye fear, lead to no profitable result to the not unnaturally excited writers. To that letter Mr. CowELL,a functionary appointed by the Colonial office, but paid by the Company, has replied, and, to our thin icing, much more in the spirit of a special pleader, than that of a statesman earnest to elicit truth, and eager to render justice to the denouncers of a real or imaginary wrong. The allegations and inferential deductions of Mr. Cowell's report, have thrown oil upon tire, and, for their own sakes, we grieve that the settlers should have given way to fiery recrimination rather than to the exercise of a sober, reflective, and chastened judgment. Sympathizing in their cause, and, fiom personal knowledge, convinced of the delusions and deceptions under which they were first seduced to emigrate, we cannot but deploie the hot haste with which they have given to the world their bitter replication to Mr. Cowell's unreasonably stigmatized opinion. They have played the losing gamester to the life, and having thrown for the last stake, have, at the same time, thrown away the temper so necessary to insure them a chance of the game. That the injuries inflicted have merited con- | sideration we are well aware ; but, in this world, the mere fact of being aggrieved, is of itself an indication of the comparative dependence of the sufferer upon the wrong doer. Under such circumstances, how would the prudent — they who entertain a hope (however faint) of redress comport themselves 1 Surely not by taking the oppressor by the thioat ? Such indulgence, however congenial to the bitterness of the heait, is far from complimentary to the sagacity of the head. Into this error of excitability our southern fellow colonists have unhappily fallen, and we doubt they have, in consequence, given their opponents the best of the game. It is not to be su])posed that a battle of such magnitude could be waged betwixt the " Resident Land Purchasers" and the Crown Commissioner, without calling into the field a host of auxiliaries on either side. Vai from it — a cloud of skirmishers have taken extended older in the columns of " Original Correspondence" of the Wellington journals, whence they have delivered sundiy very effective &hots — shots which, if they do not impair the efficiency of the grand details of the -' Resident Land Purchasers," nevertheless do considerable damage to many of their statements. It is true that their main position has neither been shaken nor turned. They have not icceived the consideration for which they parted u ith their coin, and fgr which they sun-

dcieil the ties deniesl to the human heart — the abandonmcnl of home and kindled, the se\eKuite of friendships, and the biaving of all the peul> of a rude and savage land. A residence of years softens, if it does not a\ holly obliteiate, the memory of the pangs which almost eveiy early colonist has expenenced, Avhen rented from the sustaining fellowship of the \oyagt-t with whom, (tluough the months of the outward passage) he has indulged m pleasing anticipations \)f a fanciful El Dorado. Absuul jis (hose day ti teams questionless ;ue, it is si ill ncvci theless not one of the least of the settlers penalties to tear (hem from the heait, and in parting Avith those who sympathised in their indulgence, to fall at once into the dull, drear, lealttics of the emigrant's arduous and, frequently, lonely lot. Having felt all this, avc can make ample allowance for the" Resident Land Purchasers," in adveiting to it as an aggravation of grievance in the non-fulfilment of their reasonable expectations. It is futile of their opponents to allege, that because some of their body may have lealiscd 40 or 400 per cent, profit by sale of part of their lands, that that fact is a sufficient answer to their honest demand to be put in possession of the whole for which they covenanted. As a set off against the plea of " ruin," it may in many cases hold good, but when the New Zealand Company's sections Avere bought, it formed no contingent clause that the purchaser should be restricted by comparative success with a feAv acres, from insisting upon the full tide of fortune he would be likely to enjoy if put in possession of his land in its entirety. We leave the further consideration of this subject to those more deeply interested in its investigation than we. That the " Resident Land Purchasers" have been grievously wronged we are fully convinced. That a large instalment of justice is due to them from the New Zealand Company we imagine to be indisputable. That they have urged their claims in a too impatient spirit Aye admit, but we also conceive that it would be as dishonest as derogatory to the character of the Company were They to make the impetuosity of their victims the apology for their plunder.

The nefarious transactions, attributed to certain of the Islands' tradeis, from Sydney, which have no doubt aggravated, if they did not primarily provoke, the lelentless hostility of the natives of those savage groups — are at length, we rejoice to find, about to elicit a searching investigation. This is as it should be. The cry of innocent blood has long demanded such expiatoiy justice, and it is fortunate that the Captain of a British Man-of-war should have \ isited the locality where outrages are alleged io have occuned — that he should have obtained information of the wrong — and that he should be in a position to follow the declared i aggressors, and probe the matter thoroughly. j This is one of the good effects of a Naval Sta- I tion in these Seas, overrun as they have been by hordes of lawless brigands, who under no apprehension of encountering the pennant, and feaiful of no after reckoning, adopted the Rob Roy maxim, illustrating in sanguinary colours an eager promptitude that " They should take who have the will, And they should keep who can." It may be in the recollection of our readers that, some twelve or fourteen months since, Mr. Benjamin Boyd, of Sydney, dispatched Uvo of his vessels, the Velocity, schooner, and Porhsnia., brig, to several Islands of the Hebridean groupe in order to inveigle some of their inhabitants to proceed to New South Wales. Cargoes were procured — by what \ means it is not for us to say, — and the feelings of the respectable inhabitants of were shocked by an irruption of breechless | cannibals, who in utter violation of all decen- j cy roamed the streets and were guilty of re- ! peated acts of violence upon defenceless females, and isolated stall keepers. This invasion was termed by Mr. Boyd and j his appiovers an interesting (query interested) j labour experiment, and theie weie not wanting j Journalists base enough to prostitute their i prints to advocacy of his abominable system. The editors of the Atlas, the Chronicle, and the Australian, were, however, constant and conistent in earnest denunciation of the atrocious wrong, until, indeed, the proprietor of the latter paper, won by "a consideration," read its palinode — causing it to eat its own words, and under the honourable guidance of a well known Special pleader, to strain its utmost to show the world the depth of degradation to which, for the consideration aforesaid, it was willing to descend. But its hireling scribe and venal aid sped to the rescue all too late. The aim desired by the Atlas, and the earlier Australian had been accomplished. The question had been asked, and Mr. Lowe, in indignant thunders, in the Council Hall, had replied that the diffeience betwixt New Hebridean and African deportation was little else than imaginary — and that the kidnapping of the one was virtually as much an infraction of the Slave Piracy Act, as the forcible abduction of the other. The denunciations of the independent press — the debate in the Legislative Council — and the subsequent visit of H. M. Ship Dido to the islands of the kidnapped, have led, it seems to some very inconvenient exposures, and if we may hazard from the « Imtortant

TmrsTinuioN" luiefly adverted to in the llfr\li> of <ho 20th ult., we should say that the Dido has in all piobability piocerdcd to Sydney to assist in the denouement of this savage diama. The annexed is the Jlnuufs notice of the subject. "Important Investigation. — A Prelmiinaiy inquuy was held yesterday a! the Wafer Police Office before a bench of magistrates, iospecting some tiansaclions said to have taken place at ono of the .South Sea Islands 1 , while 1 lit* Poiul'-nia and Vn.ocrrY Averc piocuring labouiets for Mr. Bovn. The inquiry Avas stuctly puvale, but we believe that in foimation piocmed by 11. M. Ship Dido, which has recently been among the islands, has been fora\aided to the Governor, who has handed it over to the Magistrates. We have no doubt that the paragraphs extracted by us from the vSajioan Ruporthr a few days since refer to the matter now under inquiry." The paragraphs mentioned above Avill be found in another page of this day's New Zealanokr. Teiminate as this inquiry may, we tiust that it will have the effect of giving the couf de grace to any future "experiment," which, however basely it may be attempted to be glossed over, is, mutnlo nomine, unquestionably Slavery, and pregnant Avith all the brutalities and crimes Slavciy's insepaiable concomitants.

A letter of a somewhat bitter character appeared in our last from the pen of Captain Nagle respecting the failure of the meeting on the subject of Steam Communication. In that letter Captain Nagle has committed two or throe mistakes. It was not he who called the meeting. The Advertisement Avas an anonymous one, and, as he was forewarned by more than one person, liable to be regarded with suspicion ; certain at all events to lack that weight which a dozen or two of influential signatures appended would have ensured. Captain Nagm? was moreover in error to suffer a momentary chagrin to mislead his judgment, and permit him to cast about odious l ejections which we cannot for an instant imagine he believed. The " Aucklandites," as he is facetiously pleased to designate us, have no desire " to upset the Government, or turn the Goveinor out of the colony," and we imagine the wen thy Captain made a sad miscalculation when he supposed that " hundreds" could be convened with so treasonable a view. Captain Nagle is an old and a staunch colonist, one who has the prosperity of the colony at heart, and we can only regret that on this occasion his zeal ra« away with his discretion.

Supreme Court. — Civil SrnE. — The Chief Justice attended the Court on Wednesday last, jut there were no causes for trial. His Honor, jefore the Court was closed, referred to the ;ase of the Queen v. George Clarke, and stated that he had received a letter fiom Mi. Justice Chapm-vn, dated Gth May, in reply to x communication of hia (the Chief Justice **>), enclosing a copy of the proceedings in this sase, dated Sth March. Mr. Justice Chapman had not been able, within the short time that. lapsed before the sailing of H. M. brig VrcromA, to send up to the Court his view of the case.

Our intelligence from Sydney, by theS wallow, reaches to the 20th ult., inciushe. Although there had been no direct arrival from England, papers to the 24th January, had K>ent received by way of Sincapore, and from these we are enabled to condense our usual summary. Her Majesty, Prince Albert, and the Royal Family had returned, in good health, to Windsor after a temporary sojourn at Claremont. Her Majesty had written a letter of affectionate condolence to Louis Piiillipe upon the occasion of the decease of that sovereign's amiable and lamented sister. The Monetary and Commercial condition of England continued steadily improving, although, even still, occasional and rather heavy failures bespolce the magnitude of the recent mighty convulsion. The news from Spain — writes the Monthly Times, of the 24th — is inordinarily replete with inteiest. Worn by domestic disgust, and cares of sovereignty Queen Isabell\ (to the alleged grief of Louis Phillipe) has been afflicted with great mental and physical suffering. These sufferings have, it seems, revived a heartless hope in the Montpensier marriage, by strengthening the chances of the Infanta's succession to the Spanish throne. Christina who is supposed to be the potent Queen of this wily game remains (like another Judith Malmyn ? ) by the side of her devoted daughter, with fond maternity aiding her councils, and, with feminine delicacy, shooting wolves at a royal battue ! Espartero has arrived at Madrid and been received Avith frantic enthusiasm. Attention has again been drawn towards Switzerland. M. Guizot and Lord Palmerston putting opposite constructions upon the settlement of 1815. The former statesman throws out obscure menaces of coercion by Prance and the two powers that act with her, intimating that if the sovereignty of the several cantons be violated Switzerland forfeits her right to neutrality and inviolability. The latter insists that the neutrality and inviolability of Switzerland protect the Confederation from all aimed intervention so long as the republic commits no aggression on foreign states, internal changes notwithstanding.

Tv llaly, "the woik goes l)ravely on. "—" — Austiiaand Rome aie at issue still. Lombartly is in a ferment — Milan m a state of the greatest exasperation— And His Sardinian Majesty prudently preparing to be " equal to ciIher foitune." He lias called undei amis the Military Contingent of 184S ; he has oideied ihat the soldiers who have completed their time of sci vice in February aie not to be disbanded, rind that all officers and soldieis absent on leave are to be recalled. The additional force io be enrolled will amount to 25,000 men. The alarm bell of invasion which has been so long and clamourously rung on the English side of the channel has been echoed with seemingly equal apprehension on the Gallic shore, where additional woiks of defence are 1 pioposed or projected. As "the sovereinst thing on earth," to allay these mutual misgivings, Mr. Cobden reccommends his universal specific, contending that the free dissemination of free trade principles, is the only charm wherewith to conjure a icduccd naval and military establishment amongst each and all of the great powers. Meanwhile, disiegarding this grand pacification, the Congress of the United Slates have authorised an addition of 20,000 volunteers to their Mexican Army, in whose camp an awkward split appears to have taken place, General Scott having ordered the arrest of his subordinates, Generals Worth and Pillow, and Colonel Duncan. General Worth had expressed his disapproval of the terms agreed to by General Scorr for the capitulation of Puebla, and had subsequently issued a circular to his division, to which the Commander-in-Chief had objected. The Mexican Congress remained firm in declining to enter into negociations with the Americans so long as their armies occupied the country. Lord Palmerston had protested against the forcibly levying of taxes upon the English residents in Mexico to support the war with the United States. "Jn Ireland matters are assuming a somewhat serious aspect. This is greatly attributed to the active ope alions of the Arms Bills, and the highly judicious manner in which the Special Commission /or the f peedy conviction of offende s has been conducted. The Commission has concluded its onerous labours in JLimei ick, and is now engaged in the County Clare. The sentences pasted have been marked with great discrimination, and have elicited the public admiration here, as well as in the sister kingdom. Notwithstanding this state of uff,.irs, there is no question that ciime is still extremely pievalent in the Emera'd Is'e. "If Dante," observes a weekly contemporary, " could reappear, and thought fit to write an epic satire against any class of men in the United Kingdom, be could find abundant means for it in Ireland. Priestly denunciations from the altar, deliberate plunninffsof murder, which arc deliberately executed, fraud and falsehood wherever they can be made the mean* of cheat-ng charity, and robbing the ilcsti'nte, aid lastly the most disgraceful negket of those whom poveity and illness, have struck to lhee<uth, would, io succession, figure in its pages, and snow the as'omshcd woi'd something to balance the horrors which he has alrcidy depicted and condemned." 'I hat there is considt ruble truth in this picture i< borne out by the lact that unusually heavy sentences Jm\c been passed at several of the quarter beshions m Ireland, by the assistant banisters, hi Ktllarney fourteen were sentenced to transportation, and in Galnay the large number of forty-seven to transportation for Me. Serious l.ircenies were the chief ciimes of Galway. The attempt to bring to a succissful issue a treaty of j.eace between Old and Y< ung lieland has ji -oved abortive. Mr- Smith O'Jirien, as the accredited leader of the juvenile party, has turned a deaf eir to all Folicitaiion, «nd manfully refuses io re-herd with the jobbers of Conciliation Hall, except upon the hard condition of the present association being scattered to the winds, and the whole fabric beirg rerno* delled accoi ding to the principles of the Irish Confederation. W> have given, in our Irish intelligence, 'th? pith of a speech delivered by the Lord Lieutenant at the inauguration dinner of the Lord Mayor, and it remains further to be chronicled, with respect to Irish affair*, that Mr. John O'Connell has been invited to a public banquet in Paris, by Count Montalembert and a body of Roman Catholics, in earnest of their respect of his own intiinsic merits and the memory of his father, the Arch- Agi fat o . The vrhv and the wherefore of this special invitation has been discussed by the public journals, and the Times thinks it great buffoonery to don the son with the dignity due a one to the sire. Most indubitably the mantle of the one has not dropped upon the shoulder of the other, John bearing about the degree of comparison to Daniel as " Hyperion to a Satyr." A Young Ireland Club called -'The lar Connaught," has been established in Galway. The Vindicator thus defines its objects •.—". — " To diadem once again the fair brow of ' Erin of the Sti earns/ and render her wan features radiant in the effulgent glow of perfidously lost hut proudly recovered liberty." It is stated in the Irish correspondence of the Morning Herald, of the 31st December, on the authority of a letter received in Ireland from America, that not fewer than 8000 Irish emigrants had perished upon the Atlantic voyage, or shoitly after their arrival in Canada. A startling statement lately appeared that the beggais of the metiopolis are 60,000, and that the alms they obtain amount to £1 ,200,000 a year, an average of £20 a year for each beggar, which is as high an average as that of the incomes of the working clergy of Wales ! According to this account the piofe&sion of a London beggar must be far better than the lot of an industrious labourer. It is idle to attempt to dissuade the public from giving encouragement to mendicancy. During a recent trial in the Court of Queen's Bench the learned Chief Justice declared his opinion that the presence of reporters, and reports in the newspapers, " tend very much to the fuitherance of truth and justice." It is said that the French Government has delciroinetl upon, a. comse which will in all

piobalnhly impnil a fillip to Ilu 1 snpincness o{ the Downmg-stieH officials, and piompl the English Exmiliu 1 to follow whcie they should have led — two Ficnch national stcamcis aic to ply foilhwith between Suez and Bombon. The fear of another Chinese ruptuie is, for the present, at an end. By intelligence to the middle of February, it would appeal that the Celestials had made an rtmewrfc so satisfactoiy to Sir John Davis as to induce His Excellency to countermand the large bodies of Uoops, which, at an enormous expense, and upon his urgent requisition, had been despatched from the various Indiau poits. Some of these troops had arrived at Hongkong, others had been detained at Sincaporc. At the latest date quietude prevailed. In Sydney the land question continues to be anxiously but almost hopelessly discussed ; the squatocracts, in the present Council, far outnumbering the advocates of a moderate upset price. Any expression of opinion in Council against the threatened new constitution, which was so fuiiously denounced at public meetings, both by the mcmbeis of that Council and others, has been bniked, thiough an ignoble and unseemly jealousy. Mr. Weniwoiuh's piotcst (or by whatever name it i\as called), was doomed to be objectionably and coarsely worded, and in emendation of his vulgarity, it was voted that the despatch of Earl Grey, and the resolutions consequent thereupon, should be discussed by a committee of the whole House. This, accordingly, was done ; and, on the Hth, Mr. Cowper moved a seiics of eight lesolutions as an amendment upon those of Mr. Wentwortii — one was withdiawn, but the remaining seven^wilh a few tiivial alterations, were adopted: — nothing remaining but to repoit, up jumped Mr. Wentwortii, to move that the chairman leave the chair, repoit progi ess, and ask leave to sit again this day six vwnlks — a date ere which the first elective Council of New South Wales will have been numbcied among the things that were. Upon this discreditable motion, the House divided, the Government officials speeding to the rescue of the noble Secretary's pet pioject, and casting a majority of five " most sweet voices" into the ministerial scale. Oh, Billy Wentworiii ! Billy Wentwortii, oh ! The Herald, in a semi-sarcastic lone, sneers at our fears of the impending exile tide casting a portion of its polluted stream upon New Zealand and the other " untainted 1 ' colonies. We judge of the tree by its fruit, and luckily the Port Phillip Herald of the 11th of May furnishes us with proof demonstrative that our fears are harped aright. In the analysis of the approaching criminal sessions at Melbourne, the journal in question, (premising that theic aie no less than one kundicd and t/uitjj-foiir prisoners in gaol) states that there arc tkirtyfour prisoners for trial, who may be paiticularized thus ■.—. — Exiles 11 Expnees 12 Fiec 11 Total 34 The editor then goes on to show, that the free are many of them only freed, and that of those for tiial the reasonable probability is that not more than a fouith of them left the mother country unconvicted. To the proximity of Poit Phillip to Van Diemen's Land, and the extensive traffic earned on, is this cuiel deteriorating of moral woith, correctly attubuted. If it be injurious noAv, what will it prove when the exiles, like the locusts, may light and destroy where they will ? A sale of Crown Lands took place at Adelaide on the 3rd of May, but of a hundred and three sections only twelve were sold, and these, with one exception, at a shilling above the upset price. A memorial, most respectably signed, had been presented to Governor llobf, praying him to cause a bill to be introduced into the Legislative Council for the re-establishment of a municipal corporation for the city of Adelaide. There were few vessels loading at Sydney for New Zealand. The Kingston, ship, cleared out for Auckland with cattle the same day as the Swallow. The Louisa brig was advertised to sail the following Wednesday, and the Cheerful, schooner, and William Hill, brig, were laid on.