To Ihe Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Nelson, 2d May 1845.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume I, Issue 32, 17 May 1845, Page 3

To Ihe Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Nelson, 2d May 1845.

Sir, — In a recent number of your paper, 1 observe that I am somewhat roughly handled on account of a comparison I drew at the dinner of the Agricultural Society here, between the Wellington and Nelson statistical returns. I was hurt, on reading the remarks referred to, to think that the Wellington Settlers did not know me better than to suppose I could have any desire to detract from the merits of their Settlement, and that they could discover any such intention in the observations 1 made with the view of encouraging those whom I was addressing in the enterprising pursuits which, during the past year, had been attended with very satisfactory results. Read at a distance in the grave columns of a newspaper, the remarks I made may have borne a different aspect ; kut lam confident that if the readers had been I present when those remarks were made, they would have ' received them in a different spirit, and have spai ed an old fellow settler the observations you have bestowed upon him. ' Perhaps the matter is scarcely worth noticing ; but I I regret any thing which might tend in the remotest de- ' gree to estrange these settlements from each other, and !' am therefore unwilling to allow the opportunity to pass ' of, assuring you that you have misapprehended the feeling with which my observations were made. I remain, Sir, Your obedient servant} William Fox. o