New Zealand Colonist TUESDAY, JULY 25, 1843.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 103, 25 July 1843, Page 2

New Zealand Colonist TUESDAY, JULY 25, 1843.

It is satisfactory to find that the rebuke which we administered to our contemporary on Tuesday last, has not been unfelt. We could wish no better proof of the effect of our animadversions than the singular delusion 1 under -which he labors, that we poured upon him a whole shower of personal abuse. As however this is a delusion which'wall he shared by none of his readers, we shall say nothing on the subjec. In liis apologetical defence of Saturday, our contemporary furnishes us with opportunities of retort, which we could use with perhaps unexpected effect, and our employment of which we could fully justify, by the principles which he has laid down. -They will suggest themselves to so many of our readers that we need not fear being accused of hinting at recriminations which we know, do not exist. Brit we have no personal feeling to gratify—no personal object to serve. We have animadverted freely upon the Company, and their Principal Agent, because we have thought that the interests of the Colony suffered from their ,; neglect, and we shall do so again whenever it appears that any advantage to the settlement is likely to be the result. But it is in their ..public charaoter only that we have referred or shall refer to them—and though, in perusing such articles as those which have recently, graced the columns of our contemporary, it is impossible to check the momentary impulse whifch would prompt us to retaliation, we trust we shall never so far forget what is due to our own character as to act under the influence of such a feeling. But we cannot allow our contemporary to escape through the loophole which with so much labour he thinks he has succeeded in opening. We reiterate the charge which we made in our paper of Tuesday, and we will show that the excuses of our contemporary are irrelevant and shuffling. The .professed object of the. Gazette in its former article, was to show that there had been a systematic attempt on the part of the Govern-

merit,'to degrade and injure the Settlements of’ : Cook’s Straits, by appointing improper personsas Magistrates. And there was a further* attack on the Government, for having appointed Mr. Murphy (Murphy, as with an obstinate and petulant affectation, he is termed by our contemporary), to a subordinate office at Auckland. We replied to • this —first, that Mr.. Murphy had honorably raised himself in the • Government employ of New South Wales, and that his conduct here had been such as to deserve the approbation of the Government, and to gain the full confidence of the Company’s Principal Agent. And that his appointment by Government to a post at Auckland* after he had resigned his office here, was the result ; of.~ an application of the Magistrates of this ■ places. the Company’s Agent at. their head. The former statement showed that there could be no- 1 intention to injure, but rather a wish to benefit, this settlement; and the latter proved a respect for the expressed sentiments of the unpaid Magistracy of this place; which evinced the very opposite feeling to that which our contemporary would ascribe to the Government. The fact also that Mr. Shorthand at once yielded to the objections of the Settlers at Nelson to the residence of Mr. Murphy among them, as we gather from our contemporary, was the case, shews in a more striking manner the injustice of the attack he has made.— And we charged our contemporary with disqualifying ignorance or dishonorable reserve, in not knowing or not stating these facts. To this it is replied, that nearly three years after his appointment, Mr. Murphy was accused of conduct which rendered it necessary that he should resign an office which till then we showed that he had creditably filled. With regard to the charge made against Mr. Murphy in connection witji the Wakefield Club, we can only say, and we know that we speak the opinions of a large proportion of the Colonists, that we do not believe its truth. We speak of Mr. Murphy as we found him, and we scarcely ever recollect to have met with a person more punctiliously honorable in all pecuniary transactions. We know that when a charge is made against the member of a club, supported by the positive assertion of two persons, and met only by the positive denial of the accused party, the members have no option but to believe' the two. But from the‘enquiries we made at .the time the rumor in question was first bruited (and to the public it has never been, and is not now any thing more than a rumor), we were quite satisfied, and are so still, that the evidence in its support was such as would never have been believed in a court of justice. The mere fact that the enquiry was not made till several months after the alleged offence, would be of itself quite sufficient to throw utter discredit upon the testimony,—even supposing, what we of course assume, that the parties by whom it was given believed it themselves, and would have repeated it upon oath. This part of the accusation we therefore throw aside alto-

gether. The charge against the Government therefore reduces itself to this—first, that they appointed a person who had filled a responsible and respectable office connected with the administration of justice in New South Wales, and who, when he left it, received a high public testimonial to his character and his abilities from the bench of Magistrates, to an office in New Zealand which he filled for upwards of two years, in a manner to secure the good opinion of all parties, and to win the confidence of the Company’s agent, to whom he was often politically opposed; and, secondly, that afterwards, on the recommendation of the Magistrates of this place, founded upon a sense of his past services, it appointed, the same person to a subordinate office at Auckland. Upon a mere statement of the charge,, its futility, and, we suppose we must not say,, dishonesty, but we can find no fitter term, are; apparent. There is, however, more than this in it.. We' admit, that if the Government had retained Mr_ Murphy in the office which he filled, these charges, whether true or false, might have been fairly brought forward. We should then have referred to them in a different manner. But when the offence of which he' was accused, whatever might be its amount,, had been expU

ated by the loss of office —when those very gentlemen who demanded that the administration of justice in this place should be freed from the suspicion of corruption, afterwards came forward to request that a single offence should not be allowed to outweigh the past services of the individual; —to drag forth the charge, and to insist upon it, as has been done by oui contemporary, argues, for we too must speak plainly, eitlier a natural malignity of feeling, or the soreness of wounded self-love. To attack, and if possible to crush an active and powerful opponent, might require and even justify the employment of the weapons used by our contemporary. To trample on the fallen, to wound more deeply one already wounded and defenceless —to injure one whom even his political foes desired to serve, belongs in this Colony,we rejoice ;to believe, only to*"the'present Editor of the Gazette. .

We must say a'few words as to the alleged murder of six persons at Wairau by the Natives. We asked for the evidence to which our contemporary referred, as having come to light to prove that such a murder had been committed, and we are told in reply, that he “ spoke of it as a common report.” We think it is Swift that describes a people who had no word in their language for falsehood, and who were compelled to employ the phrase of “ speaking the thing that is not.” Now, our contemporary,

in his assertion quoted above, speaks the thing that is not. lie stated distinctly, “ Evidence has since come to light, which it is said was equally accessible at the time,” and which-has convinced most persons that the individuals in questions were murdered by the Natives. It is clear that the accessibility of the evidence at the time when Mr. Murphy enquired into the subject, is the only point which is referred to common report. The existence of evidence is spoken of in distinct and positive terms. Again we ask, where is it ? Shall we he accused of personality if we say that the mistakes of our comtemporavy with regard to what he himself wrote only a week previously T ' ... prevents us from yielding implicit credence to what he states that he has heard from others? If so, we shall be sorry for it, hut such is the truth. In one point our contempoary is right—and we are glad to acknowledge the fact. In walking along the beach, and talking with the respectable settlers, a matter of daily occurrence with us, we do hear many things that are not agreeable. We hear of a lamentable scarcity of money —of an increasing disposition on the part of many valuable colonists to leave the place—of fears openly avowed, in which we fully concur, that we have no further support to expect from the Company—and of facts which impress us with the belief that the settlement has to pass through a crisis which it will require our best energies to overcome, and which supineness or a blundering activity may render well nigh fatal. But we hear, at the same time, from all quarters so much practical good sense, such a clear view of the necessity of calmness and deliberation, and so universal a condemnation of the needless violence recently manifested by our contemporary, that our hopes are stronger than our fears, and we shake off altogether the apprehensions which we should entertain if we thought that our contemporary is what lie would fain he considered, the : organ of the community.

The Government Brig arrived here yesterday morning from Auckland, bringing Major Richmond, the chief Police Magistrate, Col. Godfrey, Commissioner of Land Claims, who is about to proceed to Akaroa, Mr. Edward Shortland, Captain Bennett of the Engineers, and 53 soldiers of the 96th. We have as yet heard but little of the intelligence brought. The arrival of a body of soldiers will tend to restore confidence, and we believe that ample enquiries will be made into all the circumstances connected with the affair at'Wairau. We understand that Major Richmond will proceed in the course of a day or two in the Brig to Cloudy Bay, and then to Nelson, and return to this place as speedily as possible.

Chronicle, Bth July ; Murray's Review, 12th May; Hobart Town Advertiser, sth May; Port Phillip Herald, 2nd May: Hobart Town Courier, 28th April; Southern Australian, 11th April; and Cornwall Chronicle, 4th March. By the last mail from Nelson 1 we received the Examiner of the Bth July, and two New Zealand Journals of the 7tli and 21st January. — — 1 The remains of our much lamented Mayor, Geo. Hunter, Esq., were followed to the grave yesterday; and notwithstanding the unfavorable state of the weather, a great many of the inhabitants and Maories attended the melancholy ceremony. The shops along the line of the procession were closed, and the vessels in harbour had their colors half mast.