New Zealand Spectator AND COOK'S STRAITS GUARDIAN. Saturday, March 1, 1845.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume I, Issue 21, 1 March 1845, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator AND COOK'S STRAITS GUARDIAN. Saturday, March 1, 1845.

The intelligence received by the Lady of the Lake from Taranaki, is far from satisfactory. It will be in the recollection of our readers, that Governor Fitzroy took steps in November last, to concentrate the population of New Plymouth within the limits of a block of 3500 acres. His Excellency allowed four months for the removal of the out-settlers, to whom be promised compensation for their j outlay, to be recovered ultimately from the New Zealand Company, even, if necessary, -by withholding a crown grant for the Otago purchase, which was effected under his Excellency's special authority and directions. As the period fixed for the removal of the out-settlers approaches, the natives become more ani more troublesome, and determined to drive them off their locations ; and the present non-payment of the promised compensation, while it leaves them without the means of removing, or commencing operations elsewhere, is ripening into a prospect, that the state of the Colonial Exchequer, will prevent for ever the fulfilment of the Governor's benevolent intentions towards them. The Fakatapu natives, resident between the Waiwakaiho and Waiongona rivers, have lately completed the destruction of the wood on Mr. Cooke's section at the llua, and have taken possession of the land. Mr. Cooke, who was no party to the Governor's arrangement to remove to within the small block, under promise of compensation, has always been on friendly terms with the natives', and he mnst feel that the agreement entered into with the natives, by Governor Fitzroy and the Company's Resident Agent, alone encourages and almost justifies the natives in requiring him to abandon his land, particularly as the Clergyman and the Missionaries, in support of the Governor's agreement, encourage the natives in their conduct. The disallowance by the Company's Prin_ cipal Agent, of the Resident Agent's compliance with the Governor's proposals, however it may absolve the Company from liability to its purchasers from any breaches of engage- . ment consequent upon that compliance, does not of course, prevent the natives from insisting upon the abandonment of all the land awarded by Mr. Spain except "the small block," all the settlers outside of which, are equally liable to authorized aggression by the natives as Mr. Cooke. Eeven those within' it are not secured in their possession of land by the Governor's arrangement : —as the Mokau and Waikato tribes are much displeased with the payment made to their former slaves, and threaten to invade and occupy the district themselves. " The Devil root save the Company ! Quoth John Up-on-land." Such are some of the results of the Governor's grand pacification-concentration juggle in the garden of New Zealand.

When a party has once rendered himself notorious, (whether reputably or disreputably, it matters not,) the public immediately take a peculiar interest in all that relates to him> and insist upon knowing as much as possib c of his previous history. Mr. Forsaith, the Sub-Protector, is at present in this predicament; for his success in inducing Captain Fitzroy, by his insidious advice, to upset Mr. Spain's award at Taranaki, at once fixed public attention upon him ; and recent rumours of the Governor's intention to recompense' his services by awarding him a large extent of territory, have still further excited the settlers' curiosity ; — nay, correspondents plague us so perpetually, with inquiries abou Mr. Forsaith and the chief's skull, the Taranaki letter and the expected grant of land, that, we trust, he will pardon us, if, for the of ridding ourselves of Ma troublesome friends, we proceed to give a brief sketch of

his career. After having been for some time employed in a small coasting vessel, Mr. Forsaith, having (we believe) formed a connection with Mr. White, who was turned out of the Missionary Society for practices which we need not now allude to, settled himself at Kiapara,

where he devoted his attention to pig dealiug and trading with the natives ; with whom he appears to have lived on terms of the most friendly intercourse, until, about three years ago, when by some accident or other, they discovered in one of his out-houses, the skull of a chief ; a relic, which they have ever regarded with the most superstitious reverence, and any indignity to which, they have always severely punished ; in this instance, as a punishment for the sacrilege, of which they deemed Mr. Forsaith to have teen guilty, they pulled down and then burnt all his buildings, destroying whatever property was in them. Although all this was according to native customs, Mr. Forsaith not being at that time a Protector, appealed to the Local Government ; and, as the Homocepathic experiments (which we have recently witnessed,) had not then destroyed the wholesome fear entertained by the natives for the British power, Captain Hobson experienced no difficulty in compelling them to give as compensation for the burning of the buildings, ten thousand acres of land. This goodly domain Mr. Forsaith very naturally expected, would have been turned over to him — but here, he counted his chickens before they were hatched — for Captain Hobson, after having made strict inquiry as to the motives which could have induced any one to have placed the skull in Mr. Forsaith's house, and as to the party most likely to have been concerned in it, came to the conclusion that Mr. Forsaith was not entitled to any compensation, and accordingly appropriated the land, received as payment from the natives, to the use of the crown. The skull scheme having thus proved so unprofitable, Mr. Forsaith retired from the pig trade, — became a quasi Missionary, and finally emerged into a Protector ; and it was in this latter capacity, that in an evil hour for the* settlers, he made his appearance at Taranaki, and there indited the specious letter, in which he urged upon Captain Fitzroy, the claims of the slaves returned from captivity, to that land which had been paid for, first by the New Zealand Company — then by Captain Hobson — and ultimately declared by Mr. Spain to have been fairly purchased. The effect of this letter was, as our readers know, all that Mr. F. desired, for captain Fitzroy gladly availed himself of the opportunity afforded by such a pretext, to put into^execution his previous threat to break up the settlement of New Plymouth. Since these events occurred at Taranaki, Mr. Forsaith's claim to the ten thousand acres at Kiapara, has, we understand, been again mooted ; and it is reported that his Excellency (who seems to rtgard the Crown lands as a " secret service fund,") has written to the Home Government urging them to allow this claim. But how will Capt. Hobson's report on this skull, be got over ? This sketch of Mr. Forsaith's career, brief anJ imperfect as it is, must for the present suffice — but we would ask, whether his conduct at Taranaki does not afford another to the many proofs that, in all disputes about land, in every instance in which the two races have been brought into collision, the Protectors have ever been at the bottom of the mischief? All remember how, four years ago, the Chief Protector prevented, by his personal interference, tne natives leaving Te Aro, and settling upon their reserves, as they had then agreed to do. All will admit, that the letter, which he at the same period addressed to the different chiefs in this district, has contributed as much as any thing to the difficulties which at present beset the Government. Again, in proof of the mischievous manner in which his §on (the boy Clarke, as he is commonly called) exerted his influence, we appeal to the testimony of Rauparaha himself, when, in his letter to Major Richmond, offering to settle the Hutt question he expressly stipulated that the Protector should not be allowed to interfere — for, if he were, an arrangement was hopeless. And yet, to support these illiterate and vulgar minded men — these pig-jobbers and land-sharkers, whom the natives themselves now declare to have been their worst enemies, the settlers are taxed to the amount of £2400 per annum ! !

Verily, knowing as we all now do that the object of his Government has been, by encouraging and exciting the natives to deeds of violence, to drive his countrymen out of New Zealand, and thus to restore it to its pristine state of darkness and cannibalism, we can fully understand and appreciate the declaration made by his Excellency, some time ago, in the Legislative Council, that " without such a Corps of Protectors he would not attempt to carry on his Government."

Mr. Clifford has resigned his seat in the Legislative Council, and Mr. Domett has declined the offer of a seat; neither of them being willing, any longer, to countenance the joke of a Legislative Assembly in which, on every question, they would be sure to form part of a glorious minority of one. What the Governor will do for members we cannot imagine ! But we trust that some charitably disposed people at Auckland may be induced to supply the hiatus, and act as members for Wellington and Nelson. We should really be grieved if, in the absence of a real council, its funny substitute should be extinguished for want of support. We well recollect the delight and instruction the report of its debates afforded us last session ; and how edified we were, at seeing questions that had puzzled the heads of political economists from the time of Adam Smith and Dr. Hamilton, settled by his Excellency in a manner so peremptory, that they clearly, in his estimation at least, admitted of no further argument. When his Excellency for instance told us that the prosperity of South Australia entirely arose 1 from the debts Governor Gawler had in- ! volved that colony in, we flung our " Wealth i of Nations " in disgust away from us, on finding its fallacies so convincingly and triumphantly exposed. But while we so appreciate the merits of the master, it would be rank ingratitude in us to overlook the services of the man. To the Attorney- General the colony is indebted for having brought down the science of Government to the level of the meanest capacity ; and for having in the midst of our distress, afforded us subjects for mirth in the nonsense promulgated in the shape of Ordinances. Let the Ordinance indeed, be what it may, the meaning is so well wrapped up, that it would be difficult to find even a lawyer, who,' from the words alone, could swear to more than his belief of the meaning. We have been led to these remarks by the difficulties we experienced in understanding the Imprisonment for Debt Ordinance. We admired the brevity and perspicuity of its preamble, and had no great difficulty in mastering the first paragraph, (in which it is provided that any person taken in execu- ! tion may, after being in prison ' two calen- ! dar months or upwards ' apply by petition to the Supreme Court for his discharge) when we were suddenly brought to a dead halt by the following announcement. " The petition shall state the time of the prisoners j commitment to prison, and the names of the persons at whose suit he shall be detained in custody, and the debts or sum of money for which he shall be so detained; ' and that he hath caused notice in writing of his intention to present such petition to be personally served on such detaining creditors as aforesaid, or on their agents." Although opinions are much divided as to the meaning of this sentence, we are aware that the general impression seems tc be, ; that it is in the power of every creditor to take his turn in imprisoning the unfortunate debtor, so that, in fact, provided he is not | detained by more than one at a time, he has to run the gauntlet of the whole. We are inclined to coincide in this view of the case, seeing that the Imperial Parliament have recently passed an Act diametrically opposed to it : in fact, abolishing imprisonment altogether, except in cases of fraud. Clause 3. provides that Courts shall be held for the hearing of applications for relief in the months of March, June, September, and December, and in the following clause we are told that " every prisoner (or petitioner, for the words seem to be indifferently used) who shall have filed such petition as aforesaid twenty-eight days at least before any day so appointed for the dispatch of business arising under this Ordinance, shall be

brought up on such day accordingly." Now we will just suppose that (the first week in each of the above named months being appointed for the hearing of applications) a debtor is taken in execution in the second week ; two months must elapse before he can petition, and another month must elapse after his petition, before he can be heard. Thus he will just be too late for the first sittings after his incarceration, and must I actually remain in prison six months before he can by any possibility, under this Ordinance, be relieved. If each of his creditors be equally dexterous, he will thus (his prot perty, we must remember, being all the while liable) wipe off his debts, at the rate of six months imprisonment for each, instead of three, which at a first glance at the Ordinance, one might think was humanely intended. And this is what Mr. Swainson, in the preamble, jocularly terms a " a relief of persons imprisoned for debt who have become indebted without any fraud or gross or culpable negligence, by releasing the persons of such debtors from imprisonment." We think we have said enough to give our readers a tolerable idea of the careless and slipslop manner in which laws are made in this colony. In selecting this particular Ordinance as the subject for our remarks, we have by no means taken an extreme or a solitary case ; as we shall indeed shortly prove to our readers. The Ordinance in question has already lived six months — the ordinary term of life of Ordinances in general — we may therefore daily expect to hear of its being repealed, or disallowed at home. Mr. Attorney- General Swainson, the author of these productions, receives £430 per annum, and his principal duties consist in drawing up Ordinances, and in supplying the Government with wholesome advice. When we consider that he advised the late Governor respecting the Tauranga affair, and has since advised Captain Fitzroy with equal felicity, we shall not be considered harsh in estimating his advice as dear, at any price. With respect to his legislating powers, we have already given one specimen of them, and we senously recommend, that in future his services in this line should be paid for, by the job. The number of Ordinances passed last session was twenty-one — and, in these times, twenty guineas a piece for such productions, is really monstrous.

In our paper of the Ist instant we charged Mr. Carkreek, the Postmaster at Nelson, ■with gross neglect of his duties, in not having forwarded by the Hazard, the English mails brought by the Slams Castle. We made this charge under the impression that Major Richmond had offered to give the Postmaster any extra assistance that he required ; had detained the Hazard sufficiently long to have enabled Mr. Carkreek with moderate diligence to have got our mails ready ; and lastly, that he had sailed believing that the Wellington mails were on board the Hazard. We received a statement to this effect from several parties who professed to have had it from Major Ricb,mond himself. But we must now lay before our readers the following communication received by the Carbon, from a settler at Nelson, dated Feb. 12 :-— I see by the Wellington paper and by private letters that you are all very savage at the detention of your Slams Castle mails, and that you lay the blame on our Postmaster. As these little contre temps all tend to promote the jealousy which exists to some degree between the settlements, and which it is very desirable should be roduced to as small an amount as possible, I am anxious to state what I know about the matter. The mails were landed two hours after the ship arrived in the outer roads. They consisted of thirteen boxes and five sacks, all put up indiscriminately. All these our Postmaster had to sort, weigh, stamp, and repack, without any other assistance than that of the Flag Staff keeper, a wounded Wairau man with one hand, besides his having all the duties of Harbour master to perform on the arrival of the ship. The Hazard's boats left at about 9 o'clock, p.m. on Tuesday, when Major Richmond having ascertained that the Auckland and Russell bags were ready, refused to wait any longer, though Carkreek offered to work all night if he would, and to have the mails ready by day break. Ido not believe

from what I saw that there was the least neglect or indolence on Mr. Carkreek's part, or on any body else. Mr. C. is universally liked and respected here, and certainly does his duty most efficiently on all occasions. If such be the facts of the case, we shall be most happy to retract our charge against Mr. Carkreek, and to express our sincere regret that we ever made it , but, before doing so, we feel bound to afford Major Richmond an opportunity of giving any explanation he may deem necessary. We therefore postpone our remarks till next week.

When his Honor, the Superintendent, asserted that Mr. Sinclair had no authority to sanction the election by the settlers at Nelson of a member to represent them in the Legislative Council, he surely cannot have been aware of the fact stated in the Nelson paper, that at the Public Meeting called by Mr. Sinclair, the proceedings commenced by " his reading a letter from the Governor stating, that his Excellency would give a seat in the Council to any one, whom the settlers might elect, provided the Member arrived at Auckland by the first of March." Now as nothing can be clearer from this, than that Mr. Sinclair was expressly commanded by the Governor to adopt the course which Major Richmond for some reason or other seems now anxious to disavow, we must be permitted to retract our acceptance of his Honor's explanation " that it was all a mistake," and must again call upon him to state why the privilege of electing a member is denied to the settlers of Wellington ; and in making this request, we would remind his Honor, that this is not the first time that his explanation has been strangely at variance with the facts as subsequently ascertained. Let not our forbearance be tried too much.

The Paul Jones has brought us from Taranaki, two or three Auckland papers, up to the sth February, which however contain no news af any great interest. Honi Heki has explained to his friend the Governor, that he has' hitherto refrained from eating the soldiers at Russell, partly, because thirty men would afford him and his tribe but a scanty repast, and partly, because the soldiers are such little fellows that their clothes would not fit his followers. The chief Pomare, who professes to have prevented Heki robbing the settleis, now claims payment for his friendly interference, and threatens to be as troublesome as Heki himself, if the required utu be not forthcoming. It does not appear that the Government has attempted to erect the Flag Staff a fourth time. A Public Meeting had been held by the natives at Auckland, at which resolutions were moved and carried unanimously to the following effect. Ist. That the natives pledged themselves to support his Excellency's Government, as Jong as he continued to them the blessings of Free Trade and Land Jobbing. 2nd, That the Chief Protestor was an evil-disposed, deceitful, good-fcr-nothing old fellow, utterly unworthy of their confidence, and that therefore the Governor be ordered to dismiss him forthwith. An attempt was made by a native belonging to Mr. Clarke, to defend him from the accusations brought against him, but the chief in the chair, effectually silenced him, by coolly asking, "if he knew who his father was." The resolution was then carried by acclamation, three times. The last resolution was " that they (the natives) deeply regretted that so many of the settlers were obliged to quit New Zealand, in consequence of the evil tendency of the vacillating measures of the Government." The meeting then broke up, and a deputation proceeded to wait upon his Excellency to order him to dismiss Mr. Clarke, and redress all their other grievances. The Governor had withdrawn^ Proclamation offering a reward of £50 for one of the chiefs concerned in the late outrages — why or wherefore nobody knows. ,

" The aboriginal inhabitants are not amenable to British laws," was one of the first declarations with which Captain Fitzroy greeted the settlers on his arrival amongst them a year ago; and we are bound .to admit,, that his Excellency has acted according to the spirit

and letter of it with a degree of consistency which we never expected from him. The natives have abundantly proved that they are of the same opinion — for we know of no law which they have not broken — of no crime which they have not committed during the last year, with the most perfect impunity. We have, within the last few days, received additional evidence of their adherence to the doctrine of his Excellency. For accounts from the coast inform us that Taraia, a chief residing at the head of the Thames, (one who, if there ever had been a Government in New Zealand, would undoubtedly have been hanged long ago,) a few days ago made, with his tribe, a pic-nic excursion to the Manawatu River, and there attacked unawares the Pah Fatea, slaughtered its inhabitants to the number of 40, (three only having escaped to tell the tale,) and then cooked and ate them. Some accounts say that he intended to enjoy his next pic-nic at Rangatiki, but the ensuing week we shall be able to furnish the full particulars of his excursion. Well might Capt. Fitzroy exclaim — " how unjust, oppressive, and unchristian it would be to exact rigorous obedience to laws " which forbid such recreations. One thing is certain, that if Captain Fitzroy remains a year longer in New Zealand, he will convert the Christian natives (provided they are not all eaten up) back to heathenism. How this will tell, when his Excellency appears at Exeter Hall to render to his masters an account of his Stewardship, he of course is the best judge.

The Sisters, last week, brought a quantity of cheese and butter from Mr. Dean's station on Port Cooper plains. The cheese, which is the best sample we have seen from any dairy in the colony, in appearance and flavour bears a strong resemblance to the celebrated Dunlop cheese ; and we are satisfied that there will shortly be no occasion to import from England or the adjacent colonies this article, when it can be manufactured so well by the settlers in New Zealand.

Married, by the Rev. R. Cole, at the Episcopal Church, on the 27th February, J. M. Taylor, merchant, Wellington, to Sarah, second daughter of Mr. Jos. Miller, of Sydney.