To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume I, Issue 38, 28 June 1845, Page 3

To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator.

Sir, — I enclose an extract from an English journal speculating upon the character of a newly appointed Indian governor ; though written three years ago, it applies very well to the present state of New Zealand, and I think is worthy of a place in your paper. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, X. Y. " If the British resident is a man of sense and vigilance, he watches the plot, crushes the rebellion, and hangs the principal performers. If he is merely a showy coxcomb, he allows himself to be tricked with his eyes open, — imagines himself the first diplomatist in the ■world, while he is laughed at by his own palankin bearers, and sits down to pen a dispatch to the governorgeneral, announcing the general pacification produced by his genius, when, in the next five minutes, he is shot in the midst of a general rebellion. Or, if he is a sulky, self-sufficient, and obstinate official, he despises all notice of the movements around him, refuses to believe that he is not infallible, and finally walks into the pitfall of the enemy, in the face of day. But the true evil of such things and persons is, the hazard into which they throw clever people and brave men, who were compelled to rely on them. Still we must have no varnishing of the Afghans ; they are a bloody, plundering, and vicious race of savages. — He must account for the ignorance which made the insurrection a surprise to him ; or if he knew of it, the scattered and helpless condition, in which the various bodies of our troops were left in that wild country.* If he can defend himself on those points, so much the better ; if he cannot, let justice be done to the army and the empire." * Query — Fellow-colonists in New Zealand ?