ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 587, 29 November 1851, Page 3

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the New Zevlandkr. Sir, — In order to remove any unfavourable impression which may have been made on the minds of my friends and the other inhabitants of Auckland, in consequence of the recent proceedings taken in the Resident Magistrate's Court, in which I was charged by one Te Mano (a Native carrier, employed by me in my tour to collect the Census in the Kaipara and Wangarei Districts), with having fired at and wounded him on the 16th ultimo, I request you will have the goodness to insert in your paper the following statement of the f.icts, as they occurred, and which I was fully prepared to prove by the evidence of the two sawyers who were present, had they been examined, before the Court, when they attended on Tuesday morning, 25th inst. On the 24th of last month I arrived at Pataua, accompanied by the Native Te Mano and a white man. On reaching the edge of the Pataua Creek, the Native had preceded me a considerable distance ; I there met two sawyers, to whom I wished to deliver Census Schedules, and called to the Maori to come back with my kit, in which they were, but he took no notice of my repeated calls, on v Inch I fired my gun in the air, as a signal to attract his attention. (He was up to his middle in the water at the time.) On hearing the report, he turned round, and, seeing me beckon to him, came back and followed me to Captain Stewarts, thence to Ngunguru, and back to Auckland, by way of Kaipara, and remained two days with me here ; in all that time he made no complaint of being wounded, and the first intimation I had on the subject was by being ai rested on a warrant from the Resident Magistrate's Court, and confined in the common lock-up for nearly three hours. The proceedings before the Court are already known to you. I am, Sir, Your very obedient Servant, Charles E. Cooper. Auckland, Nov. 28, 18 Jl.