ADDRESS TO CAPTAIN FITZROY FROM THE ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY WISE MEN OF AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume II, Issue 67, 17 January 1846, Page 4

ADDRESS TO CAPTAIN FITZROY FROM THE ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY WISE MEN OF AUCKLAND.

Auckland, December 5, 1845. Sm — We, the undersigned merchants, land-, owners, and tradesmen, resident in Auckland and its -vicinity, are unwilling that you should •take a final leave of the colony over which you have presided as Governor, without carrying "with you some unequivocal testimony to the fact, that the integrity^ of your principles and the purity of your motives have not been so universally impugned, as the general tone of expression adopted By most of the public prints would seem to imply. It is far from our intention, and would be quite foreign to our present purpose, i to enter into a critical review or lengthened animadversions upon the policy you have pursued. We are conscious that the difficulties by ■which you were surrounded on your assumption of the reins of government, were of no ordinary •character : and we feel ourselves hound injustice to acknowledge the intrepid Zealand indefatigable industry with which ypu endeavoured to surmount them. The conflicting interests in this •colony, which in its present state may be said to contain an imperium in imperio, are such, that success in an attempt to reconcile them would be more remarkable than failure; and until this radical evil is removed by the application of some efficientbut hitherto undiscovered remedy, we can only anticipate the same results, disappointment and failure, however transcendant the abilities or disinterested the motives of him who may undertake the task. We should be unfaithful towards ourselves and dishonest towards you if we were wholly to disguise our fears lest, in the fervency of your zeal to promote the interests of the aborigines, you should have unconsciously injured the objects of youi solicitude, bjr losing sight of the fundamental principle that indulgence may be abused, and forbearance misconstrued; but while we thus candidly^ avow our opinion, we must distinctly disclaim all sympathy with those who would treat the New Zealanders with all the rigour and severity of unprincipled violence, trample upon their common privileges, and disregard their most obvious rights. We sincerely hope that the day is far distant which shall witness the recognition of any other views respecting the proprietary rights of the New Zealanders in the soil of their country, either by her Majesty's advisers at home or by her representative in the colony, than those you have uniformly avowed : and this our hope amounts almost to a certainty since we have been made acquainted with the decided negative which the Imperial Parliament recently gave to a scheme which deliberately proposed to undermine these rights and to annihilate a solemn contract, and which, if it had been admitted, would inevitably have sealed the doom of the colony. T,he stigma which has been cast upon your character as a financier is, in our opinion, more easily than proved. Those who would condemn your fiscal policy, should be prepared to point out some less exceptionable mode by which, on your arrival, the colony could have been rescued from a state of bankruptcy, than that of issuing a paper currency, which we frankly confess ourselves unable to do ; inasmuch as direct . application to. the British Treasury for relief had been strictly prohibited. When we compare the past with the present state of this capital, we are bound to admit (even although some of the causes which have contributed to the improvement may have sprung from circumstances wholly independent of any act of your government), that its commercial prosperity has not been impeded, but, on the contrary, materially increased during your administration. In conclusion, we beg to assure you that we are far from being insensible to the many personal sacrifices you have made in order to further those views which you believed to be for the public good, and of our lasting remembrance and due appreciation of your many excellent qualities. And our earnest prayer is, that yourself, Mrs. Fitzßoy, and family, may be protected by the Providence of God during your homeward voyage, and that you may be

permitted to land in health and safety on the shores' of your native country. We have the honour to remain, &c. [Signed by 170 names.]