New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, September 29, 1849.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 434, 29 September 1849, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, September 29, 1849.

We perceive that Mr. Fox, in the last number ofthe Independent, has published a reply to the observations we felt called upon to make on his recent conduct. "Whether he has succeeded in vindicating himself the

, public, who have both statements before them, will best determine. To us he appears to arrive at a most lame and impotent conclusion, leaving the charges against him unanswered, and by his own admissions pro ■ ved to be well founded". The following passage from our previous article is that to which his remarks are chiefly confined :—: — When he talks of those who seek "to make themselves formidable to Government, to sell themselves at a better price," does he wish us to forget that Mr. Pox, after having refused the office of Attorney- General at j£4oo a-year, was, at the time of Colonel Wakefield's decease, on the point of leaving Nelson for Auckland, having accepted employment from Government, with pay at the rate of three guineas a-day — and of course after having resigned his situation under the Company, when the prospect of j£l,ooo a-year caused an alteration in his plans, and induced him once more to return to the Company, whose service he had just deserted ? This statement, Mr. Fox asserts, " consists partly of misrepresentation and partly of pure invention," and proceeds to explain the nature of the arrangement entered into with him by the Government, from which Sir George Grey very handsomely released him on the death of Colonel Wakefield. In order to give Mr. Fox the advantage of telling his own story (a courtesy he dGes not deserve at our hamls) we have reprinted his letter. What does this laboured attempt amount to ? Does he disprove any of our statements ? Does he not admit that after resigning the office of Attorney- General he accepted an engagement from the Government, from which Sir George Grey released him that he might occupy the situation which Colonel Wakefield's death had just left vacant ? Aye, but " the three guineas a day," he asserts, is " either a pure invention of the writer or he has been imposed upon by some one else who invented it." Yet he informs us " his expenses were to be paid," which he stipulated for, " and any fee that might be deemed reasonable would not be objected to by the Government ;" and this Mr. Fox states he " would not object to receive." There is nothing extravagant then, — after allowing a guinea a day for expenses — in naming two guineas a day as a remuneration to a barrister, who had .refused the office of Attorney-General, for a 'temporary engagement " involving great labour and probably much o"bloquy ;" nor would it, we apprehend .have been objected to by the Government as unreasonable. Mr. Fox by his admissions has rather confirmed than weakened our opinion, which we may add is that generally entertained. We have been obliged to dwell somewhat in detail on this pomt } although after all comparatively an unimportant one, for this in fact constitutes the whole of Mr. Fox's answer. He does not attempt to reply to our argument which was in substance this : — When, in the article which occasioned our remarks and of which he is the reputed author, he accuses the Government officers of servility to a despotic Government for not being present at a dinner which was a political demonstration by a Faction opposed to the Government, we showed that they only acted as he would have done under analogous circumstances, and that it is an insult to common sense and good feeling to expect they would have acted otherwise. Mr. Fox denies that his acceptance of an engagement under what he and his friends describe to be a despotic Government "in the least degree affected his political independence." Have not the present Government officers, especially " the friend !" selected as the object of his attack, an equal right with him to claim the same degree of independence ? What becomes then of his charges against them ? When he talks of apostacy, it cannnot apply to those who have not shifted and changed as he has done. But we are told by Mr. Fox that he resigned his engagement with the Government, because he held " the only Power of Attorney to succeed Colonel Wakefield in the colony." Are we to believe that the New Zealand Company were so negent of their interests as to leave the office of their chief agent to the contingency of only one successor ? that no arrangement was made by them to provide against the event of Mr. Fox's absence from the colony,' or of any arrangement which might have precluded his accepting the office, — events

not only probable but which, as he informs us, had nearly happened ? — The advantage Mr. Fox has taken of the accident of his position to lend what little influence it may con-> fer upon him to strengthen an opposition to the Governor as remarkable for its personal scurrility and licentious insolence as for its total disregard of those conventional rules and courtesies which regulate the discussion of public questions ; — in his case a sorry return for the consideration he has received ; — his recent attempt to burk the Otago News ; — his prominent position as a leader of the Faction evinced by his writings in the Independent; — all these well founded charges he excuses himself from answering by a dishonest attempt to shelter himself behind a threadbare calumny which has so often been refuted as to require no further comment ; while such an evasion is in itself additional evidence of defeat. A very few words will suffice to notice the editorial remarks which introduce Mr. Fox's letter, and which for unblushing scurrility and audacious mendacity are without a parallel even in the columns of the unprincipled Journal in which theyhave appeared. But one person, we believe, could be found, — at once the bully and bravo of this settlement, — so utterly shameless and regardless of truth as their author ; while our character is too well established to require any vindication from, or to be in the slightest degree affected by, the atrocious calumnies of this anonymous libeller, this lie incarnate. The steady and increasing circulation of the Spectator is the best evidence of our representing the views and sentiments of the majority of the settlers, nor shall we ever shrink from exposing the misrepresentations of meu who by their writings have done their utmost to degrade the character of the Press, while by their conduct they have shown a desire to establish a tyranny in the name of Liberty as odious as it is contemptible, and who become the more desperate, the lower they sink in the public estimation.