New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, March 14, 1849.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 377, 14 March 1849, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, March 14, 1849.

We do not intend to waste many word^ on the subject of our present remarks, or give it an undue importance, but we cannot allow Dr. Featherston's reply to Mr. Hickson's letter to pass altogether unnoticed. He appears to have felt himself under the •disagreeable'necessity of making an effort at least to do away with the overwhelming force of Mr. Hickson's observations, without however being able, in the slightest degree, to weaken any one of them ; for his reply not only corroborates all that Mr. Hickson has said, but actually tends to put his own tergiversation, his vacillating and trimming conduct in a stronger light, and render it, if possible, more glaring than it was before. Upon his own showing, by his own admission, he appears to have played a double game. What his own friends of the faction may now think of his conduct- in this respect, we neither know nor care to enquire ; but the sort of double dealing of I which hs has been guilty will not, we should imagine, tend to raise him even-in their estimation. ;__ JFori' if he *pg§^ess_ed~commo"ii honesty and straightforwardness^ if he had been true to the, principle he has so often pqblicly avowed, and on which _he

rests his clafni to their support, namely, a constant* determination' to have representation, and nothing but representation, how, we would ask, was it possible not only that Mr. Hickson and others, after the frequent interviews which' they appear to have had with him, could have supposed that he was wavering about accepting a seat . himself, and that he encouraged their acceptance of seats in the Council ; but that he should have earned for himself the gratitude and thanks of the Governor, which, with so much modesty and such good -taste he informs us w"a& lavishly bestowed on him by his Excellency ? If his views on the subject of immediate representation are so fixed and unalterable as he always publicly asserts them to be,- why was he so subdued by his Excellency's, kindness and condescension in consulting him, and offering him a seat in the Council, as to promise no opposition ? What sort of stuff must this soi-disant patriot and demagogue be made of, if, when the time has come for firmness and action, he so far allows himself to be overcome by his inordinate vanity, as to be >from- his principles and resolutions and, forgetting his pledges to his own party, to yield to the bland and complimentary language of the Governor, — to be so entirely thrown off his guard, as to give new pledges to his Excellency, totally at variance with those previously given to his old friends, and thus utterly paralyze his own conduct, debar himself from all action, and in fact stultify himself and render himself ridiculous. But admitting, as he does, all this, he complains of having two contradictory charges brought against him, — that he assisted in forming'the Council, and also that he opposed its formation, — and he seems to think this very hard. We really pity his obtuseness, since it is impossible to draw any other inference from his own account of his proceedings as given in his letter. The charge we brought against him, the truth of which Mr. Hickson's letter has fully confirmed, is this ; — that he did waver, ere he refused a seat in the Council, and evidently wished to accept it, and, with a view to justify his acceptance of it, advised Mr. Hickson and others to- accept seats that they might afford him support, and keep him in countenance ; but that when Mr. M'Donald, the Manager of the Bank, positively refused to have anything to do with the Council, and .that it was reported he was determined to use his influence against those who accepted seats in it, that then he was deterred and abandoned the idea, and thus found himself in the anomalous position of being a patriot, but unfortunately with his hands tied up by his own promise made to the Governor in the hour of his weakness and vacillation, and consequently unable to co-operate wjth his own party in their opposition to his Excellency's measures, and obliged so 1 far to act on this latter pledge, as to abstain • from taking any public part in the meeting which was convened for the purpose of giving expression to that opposition. But, poor man, he cannot for the life of him, se.e anything blamable or disgraceful in such conduct ! Equally paltry and absurd is his affected sneer at Mr. Hickson for having remained, as he represents, for a time undecided as to whether he would accept a seat in the Council, and for having subsequently determined on that course, when , he and others were threatened with " a lift" from the Manager of the Bank in the event of their doing so. If Mr. Hickson felt neither ambitious of the proffered honour, nor desirous of incurring the burden it entailed on him, but nevertheless, when he fpund that a factious obstruction was to be thrown in the way of the Governor's plans, and threatening intimations were made by the Manager of- the Bank, determined to sacrifice private ease to public duty, and firmly resist such tyrannical proceedings, we feel assured that his conduct, so far from being obnoxious to censure, would have redounded highly to his credit, Wd that he would have deserved the thanks of his fellow colonists. But however ' pitiful and contemptible' this attack on Mr, Hickson may appear, we do not

think that the observations which have fallen from Dr. . Featherston in his lame attempt at explaining his conduct and exculpating himself, will in way jdegree" tend to remove the impression so generally existing as to Mr. M'Donald's abuse of his influence! on which we animadverted in a late number. But when Dr. Featherston exults in the apparent effect produced on Mr. Hickson and others by what he said at the "Banquet," he seems" to have forgotten, that it was our remarks which led to the subject, and produced these results ; that by exposing his "pitiable conduct, we obliged him to stand up at the " Reform Banquet," and make the miserable defence which has rendered him a universal laughing stock ; that we obliged ,Mr..Fox~ta make the best excuse- he- could, poor as it was ; and Mr. M'Donald to procure a certificate of his good conduct from a few individuals here, as a sort of set-off against our unanswerable strictures on his conduct. But, alas ! what can be expected from one who is troubled with so treache* rous a memory, from one who. can state in a premeditated speech at a public dinner that he only remained one day undecided as to the step he should take when a seat^was offered to him, whereas it now turns out, and he is compelled to admit,' that he remained four days in that unenviable state of suspense and indecision \ But we have said enough, and perhaps more than enough on a subject that requires no further elucidation. Dr. Featherstori's weak attempt at special pleading, exhibited in the letter referred to, is not calculated to raise him in the estimation of any who are capable of discriminating between candour and shuffling.

The Government brig arriyed on Sunday from Wanganui with Captain Wolfe's company, which were landed the following day ; in the evening Captain Newinham's company embarked on board the brig, which sailed yesterday morning for- Wanganui. Captain Newinham, Lieutenant Turner, and Ensign Barton were in command of the detachment proceeding to Wanganui.

Thk following , paragraph is extracted teopa the Lauriceston Examiner: — Legal. — It is said that Mr. Stonor has been appointed Attorney-General ; that Mr. Home will proceed as judge to New Zealand, and that the New Zetland judge will occupy his place on the Van Dieraen's Land bench.