The New-Zealander. AUCKLAND, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1853.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 762, 3 August 1853, Page 2

The New-Zealander.

AUCKLAND, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1853.

Be just end fear not: ~ """ Let all the ends thou aim'st at, bo thy Country Thy God's, and Truth's. } *- ountr y *.

It may surprise some of our reader""although probably it will not at all surnrS others—to be informed that Mr. Willi. Brown, the rejected candidate at the j? ? election of Superintendent of the Provinc** has actually commenced legal proceeding against the Proprietors of the AWZmW,f and seeks to recover One Thousand Pound* damages for the injury which he alleS himself to have sustained from the gation of his fitness for that high office, \v|,j c j," has been conducted in this Journal.' fw who are unacquainted with the truei-cfljS acter of that person and of the little cliqj of which he is the centre may very naiuran! feel surprised at the step. That a" man W fl has been defeated at the polling places and more tkan defeated in a subsequent annli cation to the Supreme Court, and J$S moreover, has almost certainly a third disl comfiaire awaiting him in theresultofM* " Petition" asking Sir George Grey to mall him Superintendent in spile of the majority of the electors, should have such a morbidly ravenous appetite for being overthrown i to encounter such a risk as he now dares*— th.it one who would fain be regarded'j. pre-eminently a champion of libertv «/ thought and speech, and who is himself responsible for attacks upon personal and private reputation in every class of society in the colony, from the very highest downwards, which have rendered the newspaper of which he is the proprietor and "real Editor" a foul and offensive thing which respectable persons—alive to the credit and fair fame of the Settlement,—have beet, avowedly ashamed to send to tneir friends in oilier places, and which (although some have treated them with silent contempt or lofty defiance) have made others who were comparatively unknown, feel it necessary to seek out proofs which would convince the.'r neighbours and acquaintances of the falsehood of the assertions, not knowing where the calumnies, if unrefined, might injuriously meet them or their children,—one who has himself published to the world as his creed that "there can be no more wholesome rule than that every one who puts himself forward in a political and public capacity should be ready to have hU conduct sifted, aye to the very bottom, that judgement of worthiness or unwortbiness may be passed upon him," and whose newspaper practically followed out this theory of liberty into gross licentiousness with regard to one of the very individuals whom he is now endeavouring to mulct because they are the publishers of articles, Setters, or advertisements,, in which the principle has been inconveniently brought to bear upon his own eligibility for office; - that he, of all men, should strive to repress—or failing in that, vindictively to punish,—scrutiny into the eligibility of a candidate for the highest elective position that it is in the power of the people to bestow, must, to those imperfectly acquainted with Ike 7nan as he has gradually developed himself in the history of our colonial affairs, seem truly marvellous. Hut like various other marvels, it becomes intelligible in the light of swpenov knowledge ; and those who know Mr. Brown, as very many here have been forced by his own public conduct to know him, will notbe greatly astonished even at the phase of character in which he is now self-exhibited. We have in this movement a fuller manifestation of what was intended by the ominous " BeWARE"put forth with all typographical emphasis in Mr. Brown's newspaper to intimidate his opponents in the late contest. It meant more than a threat of attacks on individual character, (such as the libellous onslaught on one of Colonel Wynyard's Committee distorted from scraps of domestic history pumped out of a "discarded servant," in Mr. Brown's private office, by himself and a friend). It meant more than even the threat against the Government Officers who' voted against Mr. Brown, that they would be treated as "servants combining against their masters" (Mr. Brown's party !), and that no people " having the slightest control over their own purse-strings, would forget or forgive such a combination." It looked forward, as would now appear, to the present attempt by an action at law to extract from the Proprietors of a Journal which % gave embodiment and expression lo the' judgment and feeling of a large portion of, the public, a sum of One Thousand Pounds; —as a solatium to Mr. Brown's disappointed ambition and mortified vanity, and as.a.M? towards defraying the expences of his struggle for the mastery over the Province. He has resolved on the attempt, hut it rests with a Jury lo say whether be shall obtain the damages he seeks, or any part of thesis We subjoin a copy of the legal documents which has been served on Messrs. Williamson and Wilson. It is worth being placed on record, if it were only froiu the novelty -(in this country at least) of the attempt to wreak vengence upon a journal, because it echoed and enforced views ol a candidate's fitness for office in vrhicb « spoke the mind of many electors who, liM ourselves, opposed Mr. Brown conscientiously, and on exclusively public grounds-r or indeed (as in three instances out o» uje four included in the list of "ParticularsJ permitted electors to speak their own mm through its columns.

In the Supreme Court. William Brown, of Auckland, Merc****' agaitist Joh.n Williamson and v »-* I.UM Ciiisholm Wilson, of Ancku»*> Prinlers. This action is brought to recover the * OID . ONE THOUSAND POUNDS as damages foM» publication of the following Libels in the Zealander newspaper, viz.— . n f On the 23rd of April, i 855,-" Sate> « Horses! Mr. Gammon has been favored w* instructions to sell by public auction, a* 1 Squib Inn,' the undermentioned horses. MALICE.— This famous steeple-chaser, by .:*-- Tom Paine's Infidelity, out of Egotism) infrequently been known to clear the lw. gates of Decency, Truth, and Fair Play, "*<*»£. nothing is too high for him; be has ™*? 9se tered for the 'Soperinlendency' slec^ ' or, rather, he has entered himself--a ®™^ ql stance never recorded of any other hor ~' ( 0 { accounted for by the unusual develop*-" his organ of self-esteem." • tA » On the 50th April, i855-"No justly be indifferent whether Robespeirre ' Wilberforce, Paine or Ashley be aspiring w Chief Rule."

"TClheUth May, 1833—"And suppose he ma reach it, on what book would he be sworn • t office ? A correspondent of the Neto-Zea-der states, ' when the census was taken, Mr. « nwn did not classify himself under any sect lenoniination of Christians;' at least sol unf rdood the letter signed Spectator. If this be t case%hat oath will bind him ?" And on the 16th of July, 1833, commencing .VL fi rs t column of the Supplement, with the ,B ds '* W' e are ar om Relieving that there * or nol amongst those who voted for Mr. who in their inmost souls," and Ho" in the second column of the said Supplcntwilh ihe words " Without equivocation, 1116 tal reservation, or lalitudinarian laxity, or Serfage of any kind." Tli»s above arc the particulars of the Plaintiffs demand.