NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 10, 2 September 1842, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND.

EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM A GENTLEMAN IN

AUCKLAND TO A FRIEND IN EDINBURGH

“ From all accounts we get here, the New Zealand Company are bolstering up their settlements at Port Nicholson, and their new one at Taranaki, most tremendously, at home; and are getting large numbers to come out, and even declaring that Port Nicholson will yet be the seat of Government, and that this place is in every way bad, and will never come to any thing. Now, the real facts are, that Port Nicholson is in no way fit, by natural capabilities, to be a place of consequence. The harbour is certainly not better than this, and with this disadvantage, that it is difficult both of ingress and egress; whereas this is very easy, and can be taken, at all times of the tide, with perfect safety; besides that, there is secure anchorage outside for any number of vessels; whereas Port Nicholson, being situated near the entrance of Cook’s Straits, suffers the great inconvenience of being subject to a nearly constant gale of wind, caused by the narrow passage between the two islands; and frequently vessels are detained several, weeks before they can get through the Straits; and no vessel can enter the harbour of Port Nicholson, except with the tide, or a very strong leading wind. In the neighbourhood of Port Nicholson, there is not two hundred acres of land fit for cultivation; they have not even been able to find a space large enough to supply the number of town acres which they have sold, and many of them ares tuck in localities which a goat can hardly climb ; so where they are to get their country lots, (100 acres of which go to each town acre), remains to be seen: in fact, they have nothing but mountains for an immense distance back. Their surveyors have been striving hard to get a practicable road to the interior; but have, as yet, entirely failed. With regard to their settlement at Taranaki, (which they call their agricultural district), it is a patch, so far as 1 can understand, of very fair country, situated on the west coast of this island; but totally out of the way of Port Nicholson for its harbour. As it is wished to keep up, in the minds of the new comers, a good opinion of Port Nicholson, the new come ship is not taken to Port Nicholson; but, under some pretence or other, run over to Cloudy Bay, on the opposite side of the Straits; and as the agricultural district is entirely without a harbour, the emigrants, and their traps, are transhipped into small craft, and so conveyed to this young agricultural Eden.

“ Off Taranaki, there is a small island, behind which small vessels find an anchorage in fine weather; hut on the slightest appearance of foul weather, they must up anchor, and stand out to sea, as they are quite open to the full swell of the Western Ocean; and it, as I can witness, is no joke. Large vessels can’t lie there at any time, so that the new comers are to be located in a place where their communication will be uncertain, difficult, and dangerous; while the noble districts of country around here are left untenanted, comparatively speaking. We have the easiest, best, and cheapest, of all inland communications, viz., water given us by nature, with all the best districts in the island, viz., Kaipara, Manakau, Waikato, Waipa, Wangaroa, besides all the branches of the Thames, and several other large districts t 6 the northward, nearly all of which have good harbours. I have no hesitation in stating, that a more healthy place than Auckland does not exist in the South Seas ; and, for saying so, I have the authority of two experienced medical gentlemen, besides my own experience. Another fact, which shows the real state of the case, is, that many of the Port Nicholson people are coming up here. Yesterday, a schooner arrived with about fifty; but unfortunately, they had, spent the most of their money before they reached this. “ One of our first exports will be sulphur; it is very plentiful, and can be got cheap. We have also beautiful copper ore and manganese in the immediate neighbourhood of Auckland; the sulphur is very pure and fine. All we want is labour.”