To Queen Victoria, England.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 493, 4 January 1851, Page 3

To Queen Victoria, England.

To the Quebn.— Salutation to you. Here are we Hone Papita Kahawai, and myself feeling affection for you. Through Governor Grey we received your letter, and also the likenesses of yourself, Prince Albert, and your family, as a token of your love to us. O Queen ! we give you our thanks on account of your remembrance of us. The kindness and love of Governor Grey to us natives, O Queen, is very great. He is quite a parent to us ; he protects us, and gives us wise regulations ; he is wishful that we should become as the Europeans (in our habits). The Governor has authorized Mr. Morgan to engage a European to instruct us in the art of ploughing ; this is the second year of this European's stay amongst us, and, now some of us have learned to plough. Governor Grey gave us two horses, a plough, and a cart. After the Euiopean came to teach us ploughing, we saw the benefit of ploughs, and carts, and we purchased many for our use with flour f round at our mills. We have many ploughs nd carts, and we will purchase many more, when our horses are trained to woik. Our wheat fields are very extensive; we cannot grind all the produce of our fields at our mill ; we are therefore about to have a new mill erected for the sum of four hundred pounds.

O Queen, better still arc the schools for our children. Let Governor Grey continue to be urgent in having schools established for our children, in order that they nifty, O Queen, grow up, well-disposed, and live amongst the Europeans. These things, with the preaching of the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ are the means of our salvation in this world and in taut which is to come. O Mother the Queen, do you hearken. — Will you permit Governor Grey to stay liere very long as a Governor over these Islands ? We bye him, and he loves us ; he is anxious that the Europeans and Natives should live on terms of peace, — live together, live in love, live happily. This is very stra'ght or desirable. From your friend, (Signed) Kingi Hori te Waru. Rangiaohia, W^ikato, New Zealand, Oct. 1, 1850.

The following Petition of the Inhabitants of the Australasian Colonies to Her Majesty the Queen, against the continuance of transportation to New South Wales or Van Diemcn's Land, lies at Mr. Williamsons Shop, and at the Southern Cross office for signature. To the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, The humble Petition of the Inhabitants of the Australasian Colonies of New South Wales and Victoiia, Van D'icmen's Land, South Australia, and New Zealand, SurAvr/rn— This it is the glory and happiness of Your Majesty's Petitioners to form a part of your Majesty's empire ; united together by mutual ties of interest, affection, and duly ; proud of possessing the domestic and moral habits, the literature, the laws, and tho leligious faith of Great Britain; and conscious that the illustrious nation which has given them birth has impressed upon them a character not unworthy of herself. Your Majesty's petitioners humbly represent that as tho gloiious past belongs to the parent state, the future belongs to them ; and among the bright visions of the future, there is not one more cheering thnu that which exhibits these colonies as the grateful refuge nnd pleasant home of millions of industrious and honest men, the redundant virtuous population of Great Britain and Ireland. Your Majesty's pptition n rs humbly represent that the magnificent capabilities of these colonies, as fields for emigration, are greatly impaired, and youi petitioner':, ns co'onis's, are grievously injured, by the wrongs inflit ted directly on Van Diemcn's Land, and indirectly on all ihe other colonies of Australasia by transportation. Its appalling results to Van PiemenS Lind have been disclosed by P.uluimenUry inquiries, smd have been repeatedly attested and depicted, with c\« pressious of horror, by your Majesty's Minister*. Your Majesty's government has been pledged to its discontinuance : but nevertheless, the expoitatiou of convicts to that islnuil continues unabated. Your Majesty's petitioner further represent that the neliial result, if not the avowrd object-, of tho present system of transportation is to inundate through Van Diemen's Lmd, all the Australasian colonies with tbe worst convicts of the mother country ; and that such a policy is not only an outrage upon your petitioners, but a breach of your Majesty's most gracious promise, conveyed by the circular despatch of the Right Honourable the Eirl Grey to the colonial Gov- | ernors, dated 7th August, 1848, that no criminal should be transported by Great Britian to her colonies, without their consent, expressed through their colonial Legislatures. Your Majesty's petitioners farther repiesent that the consequence of your Majesty's government persisting in their present penal polxy, will be to subject to a perpetual stream of hardened and incorrigible criminals, the whole of the Australian dependencies, and to make them, against their protest, the gieat teceptacle for the crime of the empire. And that your petitioners must, in consequence, suffer most of the moral and all the pecuniary evils of direct transportation — evils which are not only the occasion of an exh tusting drain upon'their charity and benevolentinslitutions, and of enormously increased taxation for police and gaols, but the cause of social depravity s degradation, and wretchedness. Your Majesty's petitioner! further represent that although the social and moral mischiefs of the system render its merely economical results comparatively insignificant, they cannot but advert to the fact, that the criminal! .thus cast upon them are many of them diseased in body or mind, are most of them improvident and intemperate, and tint a large proportion of them become a burthen on the industry and resources of these infant communities. Your Majesty's petitioners further represent that they desire to transmit an inheritance to their posterity, unincumbered byjthe pauperise, and'unpolluted by the crime, of the empire. Your Majesty's petitioners humbly submit that, although the stupendous power of Great Britain enables her to continue these aggressions with impunity, injustice so revolting has aroused your petitioners to unite in solemn appeal to those eternal principles which should preserve the weak from tbe oppression of the strong, and which should moie especially control and restrain a parent state from thus injuring her offipring. Among the blessings which our ctmrnon religion has bestowed upon the world, it has established the intercourse of mankind upon the basis of acknowledged duties— duties which are not less binding upon nations tlinn upon individuals ; and there is not one of them ofgieater significcHicy than our duty to our neighbour. And they submit that their relation to the mother country as colonists, so far from repealing, ihould render of stronger obligation that rule of justice which it becomes commonwealths, as well as private persons, to reverence and practice, and which commands them so to do unto others as they would that others should do unto them. Your petitioners therefore humbly submit to jour Majesty that the inundation of feeble and dependent colonies with the crime of the parent state is opposed to that arrangement ol Divine Piovidence by which the viitue of each community is destined to combat its vice ; and is contrary to the principles of the siicred code promulgated by the Great Legislator of the universe. Your Majesty's petitioners, therefore, humbly beseech your Majesty to proouie the immediate cessa> tion of Transportation to Vun Diemen's Land ; and, further, that your Mujesty will be graciously pleased to abandon altogether a penal policy which your M.jesty's petitioners feel to be so injurious, io unjust, and so oppressive. And your Majesty's petitioners, as in duty bound, will erer pray, &c.