AUCKLAND.

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

AUCKLAND.

We have received the Southern Cross to April 26th and Auckland Times to April 29th, from which -we make a few extracts. From our private letters we learn that Auckland i 3 in a state of great alarm and confusion. Upwards of four hundred persons have left it since the commencement of these disturbances, and others are preparing to follow > no cultivation was going on, and business was completely at a stand :—: — The Slams Castle, the Velocity, and the Aurora, have all departed for the Bay of Islands. His Excellency has come to the tardy resolution of visiting native crime with retribution ; about 300 troops, under the command of Colonel Hulme, and a volunteer corps of about 50 of the Kororarika refugees, officered by Mr. Hector, have gone upon this expedition. We sincerely hope that something like a real purpose will be displayed on this occasion ; it is, however, little satisfactory to the public mind, that so much mystery hangs over the intentions of the Government. A considerable volunteer force from the ranks of the Auckland militia was tendered and refused by his Excellency. We look upon the Southern Cross now as the " Official organ" of the Government, and it excites extreme suspicion, and inexpressible disgust in our minds, to see him publish such a statement as, that " Honi Heki has acted the noble part of a patriot struggling like the Scottish chiefs of old, to wrest his country from foreign hands, and restore its former independence." What less than treason in our camp is it to utter such language as this ? Kororarika was alienated by the maories, and paid for by the British settlers, before Honi, Heki was born, and many of those who are now deprived of their homes and property, by his rapacity, treachery, and deceit, are positively his elder brethren, sons of the soil. — Times. The past week has furnished another melancholy disaster, inflicted at this place, which is situated about half way between Auckland and the deserted Kororarika. Upwards of forty of our fellow country people being driven from their homes, escaping barely with life, into the small craft sent down to rescue them j one of these means of safety, by name the Flying Fish,

having been seized by the natives. His Excellency the Governor has repeatedly assured his Council that he could perfectly rely upon his communications through his beautiful protectorate feelers of the " Spider's web," and yet up to the very day before this wholesale devastation of property, and manifold d£%er of existence ; his Excellency assured tyfe' Mair and orabr parties of perfect security h^This act has been perpetrated without provocation by the friendly (!) natives, who were living in the exchange of eveiy kindly service and acknowledged amity, the only excuse urged being, that there was general war, and one tribe ought to have plunder as well as another. Such is the general character of these people. The recent arrival from Sydney brings most interesting intelligence to late date, viz., to 15th December 1844 ; and we learn by letters from England that the measures pursued in this colony have received the sfanction of the powers in Downing-street. The waiving of the Crown's right of preemption under the first regulations, is sanctioned, and likewise the exchange of the land of the claimants for scrip to purchase at any sale of Government land, has been approved. We ! have been informed also, that the New Zealand Compan\ have amicably arranged their affairs with the Government, and that the settlement at Otago will proceed, and the settlers are now on their voyage outward for the foundation of New Edinburgh. — Southern Cross. On Thursday morning H.M.S. Hazard, Captain Johnson, arrived from the Bay of Islands. We understand that Nene lias so far obtained the advantage over Heki, that he has surrounded him within his pa, and that Heki has sued for peace, but Nene considers that the Governor is entitled to the first tnfety with, or disposal of, the rebel chief, and holds him within his toils until he learns his Excellency's intentions. The Hazard left this harbour again on Friday morning for the Bay. — Ibid.