Untitled

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 769, 27 August 1853, Page 2

A Letter from Mr. Wliilaker. which will bo found in another column, was delivered at our office yesterday, at an hour when we might justifiably have postponed its insertion until our next issue, in order to afford us the leisure which, on the eve of publication, we cannot readily command, for the remarks which, injustice to ourselves, should accompany its appearance. Hut ours is a plain and honest tale which may be briefly told, and we therefore lose no lime in giving Mr. Whitaker that opportunity of “explanation and vindication of his conduct” for which he seems so nervously anxious. We must claim the indulgence of our readers, however, while we recapitulate the circumstances which have induced Mr. Whitaker so far to forget himself as to pen this extraordinary composition. A gentleman in Auckland had placed in our hands a note from a friend of the Rev. John Morgan, of Otawhao, referring to letters which that reverend gentleman had addressed to both the local journals “ contradicting an attack made upon him by Mr. Brown in his paper of July 8lh.” From the tenor of that note, (an extract from which appeared in our columns on the 20lh hist.), as well as from other applications made to ns on the subject, we saw that Mr. Morgan and Ins friends were solicitous that the letter should be brought before the public without delay; but we had never received or previously heard of it, and, we stated this fact in a short “Notice to Correspondents” on the 17th inst. On the 19th, two days after we had thus called attention to the matter —the letter appeared, without a dale to it, in the S nlhern Cross, and, in the course of that day, Mr. Whitaker brought the copy addressed to us to our office, staling, that he had received it with a Inter instructing him to lake proceedings against the. Southern Cross , and that he had deemed it belter not to forward Mr. Morgan’s letter to us until he had communicated with him. But, he added, as it had appeared in the Southern Cross there was no good in keeping it back any longer. On receiving our copy of Mr. Morgan’s communication, however, we found it accompanied with the following note to ourselves : Sir,—l beg leave to enclose to you a copy of a letter, which I have this day addressed to the Editor of the Southern Cross , and which letter you are at liberty to publish in the NewZealanuer. I remain, Sir, Your humble obedient servant, John Morgan. Otawhao, August 1, 1853. P.S.—Having written to Mr. Whitaker on the subject—l have emlosed the -letter to him requesting him to read it, a:ul then forward it ou to you.—J. M. Our lino of duty now was obvious, and we re-published the letter on the morning after it came into our possession. In a few comments on the general questions involved in it, we referred to Mr, Whitaker in the following (as we thought, and still think, — under the circumstances—lenient and considerate) terms, — t esterday morning—that is two days after it was found that the letter must he fortlicoming -Mr. Morgan’s letter was published by our contemporary, and in the course of yesterday the CO Py designed for ns (and which had reached Auckland on the llth inst.) was delivered at our office by the gentleman to whom Mr, Morgan had entrusted it, with an explanation of the cause ol its haying been withheld, but with this Mr. Morgan will have more to do than we have.” On the 2ord instant, the Southern Cross, finding it necessary to account in some way for keeping back Mr. Morgan's answer to its own attack upon him, contained an editorial article on the subject, in which the following paragraph appeared ; “ The simple truth is this, that wo were unwilling to rake up the embers of a by-gone controversy, and that the letter was unnecessarily damaging to the writer himself, The

gentleman to whom our contemporarv^' had been entrusted was likewise of thW and therefor© did not deliver it when But publication having been insisted parently by Mr. Morgan himself or his T we had no choice but to give it could have made a very much worse cawT* . 4 that gentleman, had we been so disrv!. 3 ! he has not told the whole." P f or Feeling it due to Mr. Morgan i n hi , sence to repel, so far as we could ih • jurious imputation here insinuated i.!? 6 ' 0 ' ally as documents confirmatory ofijU u tradiclion ” bad been sent to us fop h j? n * lion,—we returned to thesuhjecton fh* day, and, in the course of our comn Dext introduced the following passage ; “ The man of peace and love was nft * however, in his views of what should ]L^° a# > in the matter Mr. Morgan had sent r,A e cate of this letter for insertion in our j*?"* with a request that the gentleman to l°r, on % was enclosed “would read iton<£ then it This gentleman, (who, by a curious Sf/ ie happened just then to be conducting i '!!, nc4 > c Jings taken by Mr. Brewn Journal for the boldness of its stricture unfitness for the Superintendericy) 0 u S 0!1 porary says, was of the same opinion self, that it was better the letter should "1 hun ' before the public,—and “ therefore did liver it when it was received .” \y e , noi: & how has the Cross obtained such accnw.li ledge of that gentleman’s “opinion”! « ’ came it to pass that that gentleman, complying with the request of his * respondent by forwarding to us cur in N held a conference with the party whoso • 11 statements the letter was designed diet, the result of which wastlfe conclLw?' both copies of the letter—that to the that to the New Zealand or. shbuld he Was the decision arrived at in any general or particular deliberation on tk best modes by which the “ Liberty of thelW might be restricted when its exercise miStk “damaging” to Mr. Brown’s intents® p obvious reasons we do not follow out fl? inquiry just now.” Such are the leading facts of the caw which Mr. Whitaker has thought fit* *5 found the strongly-worded letter which we this day publish. We might be contents leave the matter to the reader’s own ju# mont, assured that a fair comparison of these facts with Mr. Whitaker’s violent accusations would of itself he sufficient to show how unwarrantable those accusations are. Bat we may ask,—What, upon Mr Whitaker’s own showing, is there to justify his reviling our statements as “calumnious ” as “wholly destitute of the slightest foundation of truth,” as “pure fabrications” etc.? Indeed his own admissions abtmdantly confirm the truth of the most mate, rial of our statements For example,~ Mr. Whitaker admits that on the IRA inst. he received' a .letter addressed to the Editor of the New-Zealander, which he kept back from the parly to whom he was instructed to deliver it, until the 19/ A then it was delivered only after we bad ourselves publicly intimated that the letter bad not reached us, and after its publication in another journal rendered its further detention of no use to anv one.

Mr. Whitaker admits also that, although he thus kept back our letter, he communicated with Mr. Brown on the subject, on the very next day after its receipt. This be did “in compliance with the instructions” of Mr. Morgan. But there is an unpleasant ambiguity about Hie expression. What “ instructions” ? Did Mr. Morgan instruct Mr. Whitaker to apply to Mr. Brown with respect to the publication or non-publication, of the letter? Did Mr. Morgan make the forwarding of the letter to us contingent upon anything Mr. Brown (the identical person againstwhose “ a Uack’’itwasa remonstrance)! might say or do respecting it? Did Mr. Morgan in short, leave it in any sense discretionary with Mr. Whitaker whether we were or were not, to receive our letter from him? The Postscript to Mr. Morgan’s note to ns, (given above) we lake to be an answer to the last question at all*events. These were the chief of the statements which Mr. Whitaker brands as “ wholly destitute of the slightest foundation of truth.” yet which his own tefr= timony verifies. Though he does not advert to the point, we presume he will not deny that, at the lime of the occurrence in question he was, and that he now is, “conducting legal proceedings taken by” (this same) “ Mr. Brown against a public Journal. for the boldness of its strictures on his unfitness for the Snpcrintondency.” But Mr. Whitaker cites some of our statements which he is pleased (hi the style of dignified aurtesy by which his whole letter is characterized) to assert are “ not true.” Let us very briefly notice them. “It is not true,” says Mr. Whitaker, “ that I gave any ‘opinion’ to Mr- Brown that it was belter that the letter should not appear before the public.” Mr. .Brown, shall answer Mr. Whitaker here:—the Southern Cross , in the passage quoted above, explicitly declares that Mr. Whitaker “was likewise of ibis opinion” (that the letter was unnecessarily damaging to the writer himself) “ and therefore did not deliver it it was received.” We again ask, how did our contemporary know Mr. Whitakers “opinion,” if not from himself? This word opinion (on which Mr. Whitaker-- perhaps from some professional association—loi® stress) was quoted by us from the Cross, and given in inverted commas to show that it ' was so. Mr. Whitaker next says,—“ It is that I held any ‘conference’ with any jnao. Mr. Whitaker answers himself D® “made an application to Mr. Brown* “expressed a wish” to Mr. Brown,-y‘ "* r * r Brown slated” to Mr. Whitaker, (cideAlr* Whitaker’s letter.) If all this did amount to what is usually understood by a ‘conference’ between the parlies, Mr. Whitaker should setup as a lexicograP“ er on his own account, for no existing dictionary ~ will furnish him with a satisfactory denin*. lion of the word. And again, how did S» r * Brown ascertain that Mr. Whitaker “likewise of this (his own) opinion, 1 ‘ they had not conferred on the subject?. . . Mr. Whitaker, once more, says,—“ltisn ot true that any ‘ contusion’ was come to, staled by you, ‘ that both copies of the letter that to the Cross and that to the New-lM' lander should be kept back.” Mr* Whitaker’s own letter abundantly refutes ibis charge also. He had received one copy— . that for the New Zealander ; another copy , bad been addressed by Mr. Morgan to t»® Cross, “not through me ” says Mix Whitaker. Then, Mr. Brown had one: Mr. Whitaker - the other: Mr. Whitaker “expressed a. wish” to Mr. Brown that “nothing should be published”—“Mr. Brown staled would consider it and, accordingly boto

letters, actually kept out of the public view. Where is there even a verbal inaccuracy in our statement that the conclusion of the 'communication between Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Brown (call it a * conference’ or what you will) was that both letters should be kept back '! Further proof is quite unnecessary; otherwise it might be amply found in Mr. Whitaker’s subsequent admission that he endeavoured '■' to delay the publication in both papers.” On the whole, we cannot but think that it would have been well for Mr. Whitaker if some “adviser” had done for his own letter what he did in the case of Mr. Morgan’s,— by keeping it from publicity until he had lime to rc-consider it. Not that we for a moment admit that Mr. Morgan’s letter should have been kept back. It seems to us * passing strange that any person professing to be a friend of that reverend gentleman should have striven to keep from publication his e.nphalical contradiction of a charge which be regarded os a libel on his ministerial character, and from which, indeed, had we been in possession of the necessary information, we should ourselves have endeavoured to vindicate him when it first appeared, believing it, as we did, to be only part of the system of calumny with which the Southern Cross has assailed Christian Ministers during and since the election. If the course adopted by Mr. Whitaker in this matter be friendship , Mr. Morgan may well exclaim “Save me from my friends!” As respects the points at issue between ourselves and Mr. Whitaker, vve have enabled our readers to judge for themselves, and we have no fear as to their decision. That gentleman has employed expressions in reference to our statements which arc equally discreditable to himself and unjust to us. However—to borrow an illustration from his own profession—the evidence is before the Auckland community as a Jury, and t re unhesitatingly believe that there is intelligence and uprightness enough in that Jury to secure an honest and impartial verdict, which is all we desire.