To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume I, Issue 36, 14 June 1845, Page 2

To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator.

Sik, — J cannot help commiserating the position of some of the persons in office, whose movements are dijected by the wise and virtuous gentleman, who, if it had pleased him, might have been hydrographer to the Admiralty. What, for example, could be more perplexing to Major Richmond, professedly anxious to free this settlement from the intrush c Maories, than to be left without intelligence of what is going on in the North ? He can, to be sure, call out and drill the Militia, and by his countenance and advice, prepare the whole population for a struggle, which cannot be very long deferred, but he cannot act. He can really do nothing. Conscious as I am that every day's delay is fraught with mischief, that every hour spent in doing nothing, must add to the difficulty of doing any thing, I ask what demon of folly prevents the Local Government from sending news from Auckland ? If the Superintendent of the Southern District were instructed fully, that is, if Captain Pitzroy were able to conceive a plan equal to the crisis, and if he were able (oh "supernatural impossibility" !) to frankly entrust its execution to another, an officer acting for the Governor might know what to do. Convinced, however, that Captain Fitzroy has no plan, because, as I might safely add, he never had a plan for any thing in his life, I know that Major Richmond cannot move. In what direction could he go ? By what compass, as our quarter-deck Governor would say, could he steer ? What, then, are the people of Auckland about ? Is there no one to let us know what the troops have done at the Bay of Islands ? If the Great Fribble himself is too busy in signing debentures, or drawing bills on the Treasury, is there no one else at leisure ? The elder men of the colony are not sitting in council, and therefore some of its collective wisdom might be imparted to us in the shape "off a bulletin. If no communication take place on such an occasion as the present, what is Auckland to us ? or we to Auckland? The truth is, that we are nothing to Auckland. Since Captain Fitzroy 's arrival we have been regarded as no better than a sponge, out of which some taxes might be squeezed, and by which some worthless paper might be absorbed, and nothing more. Thanks, however, to his Excellency, Auckland is nothing at all. Its population is reduced to le^s than that of Taranaki, and of those who remain, every man with even a glimpse of a prospect elsewhere,and the barest means of leaving, is on the wing. Mining and manufacturing operations have been abondoned. There is no cultivation of the land. ,Hardly a sheep or a head of stock is tq be seen, except when vessels arrive from New South "Wales. There are, nevertheless, some things alive at the late capital. There is the Governor himself, fussing, fretting, talking and scribbling, as utterly unconscious ofwhaVhas happened as the cocked hat and feather that floated in front of Barrett's Hotel, on his Excellency's first paternal visit to Wellington. Then there is the. Governor's collection of originals, in the shape of a Legislative Council, whose only food is an alternation of patting on the head and kicking in the ribs, with now and then a dash of a wet swob in their faces. On this diet they thrive sufficiently to be able to yelp, whine, and fawn ; and sometimes rising on their hind legs, they wag their tails, and fancy themselves members of either House of Parliament. Before these, in the Governor's opinion, is the Great Protector, alias, the Dragoman, or fogrum Clarke, the foolometer of the place ; and judging of Captain Fitzroy 's abilities by his estimation of this poor old man, no wonder that Auckland is what it is. There is also a certain number of sinecurists in the shape of tax collectors, superintendents of public works, marine surveyors, &c, &c, who have no duty to perform, as the late capital is merely a fortified place of refuge for the Local Government. Relatively, therefore, to what the seat of Government ought to be, namely, a central settlement, governing, assisting, and protecting all the other settlements, am I not right in saying that Auckland is nothing at all ? The settlements at the Bay of Islands, and in the parts adjacent, no longer exist ; and who annihilated them ? who, instead of being a Governor with authority over white men and maories throughout the islands, is shut up in an outpost with no authority beyond its walls, and no power beyond the guns of the military and naval forces ? Who said that rather than govern by means of

such power, he, acting under Lord Stanley's instructions, would abandon New Zealand ?— Whp is a combination of King Log and King Stork, doing nothing forthe colony, and destroying its very vitals? — Oh! Fitzroy, Fitzroy. I am, Sir, &.c, Bedlam.