(Enclosure in No. 20.) Copy of a Letter from the Bishop of New Zealand to His Excellency Governor Grey. St. John's College, New Zealand, August 1, 1848.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 525, 14 August 1850, Page 3

(Enclosure in No. 20.) Copy of a Letter from the Bishop of New Zealand to His Excellency Governor Grey. St. John's College, New Zealand, August 1, 1848.

Sir, — I have already acknowledged the receipt of a Despatch of the Right Hon. Earl Grey, hearing date 30th November, 1847, containing his Lordship's animadversions upon the protest which I submitted to your Excellency on Ist July, 1847: I have now deeply considered the reasons assigned by his Lordship for disapprobation of the course which I felt it my duty to adopt. But first I must assure your Excellency that I duly appreciate the courteous terms in which his Lordship's censure is conveyed, and

that I shall endeavour to express, in the same spirit, all the remarks which a sense of public duty obliges me to make. His Lordship's regret on reading my pretest could not be greater than the sorrow which I felt at being called upon to write it. The necessity of such a protest appears to be denied on two grounds : — " That there was no reason for alarm in the minds of the natives ;" and "secondly, that there was no reuson for alarm in the terms of the Despatch." Earl Grey seems to have formed the opinion that no alarm actually existed in the minds of the natives from your Excellency's two Despatches of July 7, 1847, which accompanied my protest. But I must most respectfully suggest, that if the New ZealanJers had been the most abject race in the world, incapable either of feeling a wrong or of asserting a right, I should have protested against any measures which I believed to be unjust towards them. The weakness and ignorance of native races demands a more scrupulous fidelity from their civilised guardians. 1 cannot believe for a moment that the State will recognise a duty of justice only to those whom it fears, or that it will reprove the Church for being the advocate of the helpless. Nor can I believe that my protest was unnecessary, because Earl Grey's principle was "the mere expression of an opinion;" a wrong is done where a right is denied ; and I should have protested even against an opinion if I believed it to be unjust, because such opinions, like many predictions, have the effect of hastening their own fulfilment. But where I find that this opinion was contended for by Earl Grey, in the Committee of the House of Commons, in July, 1844;. that it was embodied in the Report of that Committee, and asserted in the debate of June, 1845 ; that it was revived by Earl Grey in 1846, in his Despatch of 23rd December, and again avowed in his Despatch of 30 th November, 1847 ; and, lastly, reserved for the closing sentence of his Lordship's reply in the New Zealand debate in the House of Lords, 27th February, 1848, I mast conclude either that this is not an opinion, or that it is the duty of those who differ from his Lordship to combat an opinion which he thinks it so necessary to assert. I appeal to the despatches of all the Governors of New Zealand to confirm my own observations, made in all parts of the country, that fears and suspicions have always existed in tbe minds of the natives as to the intentions of the Government. In June, 1842, Captain Hobson reported to the Secretary of State "that the natives of Kaipara were in a state of considerable excitement in consequence of reports that her Majesty's Government intended to seize upon their lands, that the property of the natives would not be respected, and that the treaty was a mere farce." Your Excellency found suspicions of a similar kind prevailing at the Bay of Islands in November, 1845, and quieted them by the same explanation of the Treaty of Waitangi, which has always been given by the missionaries and myself. If you had stated Earl Grey's princi-. pie as your own, and denied the right of the " savage inhabitants of New Zealand to their unoccupied lands," my belief is that not one native ally would have adhered to our cause. On the 3rd of May, 1847, your Excellency expressed your fears " that the natives would be drawn into a hostile combination if their pride were insulted and their feelings irritated by their being placed in an inferior position as a race." Could anything more insult the pride of a New Zealander than the degradation implied in the name of a savage? or could anything irritate his feelings more than to Le deprived of the possessions of his fathers? or could anything place him in a position of greater inferiority than the denial 1 of his right to unoccupied land, while thousands of acres of waste lands were being awarded to every class of English claimants ? Even his reserved rights would haye ' had little prospect of lability, in face of an opinion studiously repeated that he has no rights at all, and at the best dependent upon the Acts of Provisional Legislatures interested in spoliation, and upon a registration by a Protectorate, which had been abolished. Your Excellency feared all these consequences in May, 1847, and therefore suspended the most elaborate of all modern constitutions. I think, therefore, that I have proved that in May, 1847, that is within two months of the date of my protest, there was reason to fear the effect of Lord Grey's despatch upon the minds of the New Zealanders, and in about two months after that [ date Captain Sotheby reported the prevalence

of the same suspicions among the northern chiefs. If then on that particular 7th of July, on which your Excellency's two despatches and my protest were forwarded, there was no existing ground for apprehension, that day can only be looked upon as a happy interval of repose preceded and followed by fears on the same subject and in the same quarters. And when I know that the same noble Lord, when chairman of a Committee of the House of Commons, passed a resolution to the same effect as the more recent instructions in his despatch, and that your Excellency attributed the suspicions of our allied natives in the north to the debate in the House of Commons of June, 1 845, in which the same principle was asserted, I must with all deference contend that there is ground for fear, and therefore for remonstrance, when the same noble Lord, as a peer of the realm, and as the responsible adviser of her Majesty, directs your Excellency "to avoid as much as possible any further surrender of the property of the Crown." The probability seems to have gone on increasing from the meeting of the Committee in July, 1844, till the present time, that the principle which might at first be called " the mere expression of an opinion," would ultimately be carried out into actual spoliation. It is far from my intention to make any individual use of Earl Grey's words in recommending that caution which I am supposed to have neglected ; but I would appeal to his Lordship, on his own accurate knowledge and vivid description of the native character, whether a people so irascible and warlike, "so quick in apprehension and fierce in resentment," can safely be told that they have no right to their lands by the highest of all authorities, that of her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies. I can find no stronger words than those of Earl Grey himself, "that they who use such language incur a heavy responsibility, and a heavier in proportion to their station." It may be possible in England to be satisfied of the "unsubstantial nature of the grievance with which the natives are threatened;" but we who have seen the British flag contemptuously cut down, and a town sacked in consequence of these suspicions, are forced to believe that if the grievances are not substantial in themselves, at least they have, a real existence in the minds of those who believe themselves to be aggrieved. They know of our dealings with other native races, and would ask at once, in their own figurative language, whether it be the shadow or the substance of a grievance which depeopled Van Diemen's Land and Australia. Whether then Earl Grey's principle were a mere matter of opinion, or an opinion "big with the fate" of the New Zealanders; whether the grievance were substantial in its nature, or in itself an act of injustice ; whethe New Zealanders be careless of their rights or vigorous in asserting them ; whether they be warriors to commaud our respect or worms to be trampled on ; whether the Treaty of Waitangi be a mere farce, or a solemn act of the Queen in the exercise of her prerogative ; we all with one voice, as the friends and advisers of this native people, have persuaded them to put their trust in the good faiih of England ; and with one voice we will protest against any infringement, either in word or act, of the rights of British subjects which they acquired by the cession of their independent sovereignty. How far we shall be constrained to act as well as to appeal will depend upon the nature of the grievance with which the natives are threatened. Earl Grey believes that the injury which he has done to the native people is of an unsubstantial nature, and I can assure his Lordship that my protest, in like manner, has had no substantial bearing upon the people of New Zealand. Few even of my own friends knew that it had been written, and not oue of the native race. It is sufficient therefore to meet with a full denial the supposition of Earl Grey that " I have persuaded the natives" that they are threatened with injustice, or that I have " excited or aided them to resistance." I never thought that Earl Grey himself desired to violate the public faith which had been so often and solemnly pledged to the New Zealanders by every one of our Governors, and by five successive Secretaries of State. But we must be blind indeed if we were unable to see from the language of the English newspapers, especially those which are not interested in this colony, that efforts are being made to set aside the treaty of Waitangi, either by open ridicule or by covert misrepresentation. These endeavours may prove successful, and some future Governor of New Zealand

may be instructed by some future Secretary of State to take the lands which now ate already asierted as the property of the Crown. Upon the first act of forcible usurpation would begin our duty of constitutional opposition, and we should not hesitate, as ministers of pence, to inform our people that the law is more powerful than the sword ; and that the chartered rights of British subjects are secured even against the power ot the Crown. If this course of legal and peaceable remonstrance were not to be suggested to them by friends in whom they confide, their ignorance no less than their passions, would drive them to " more violent methods of asserting their rights." I cannot conceive what portion of my protest can have led Lord Grey to conclude that it was " written under feelings of much excitement." The whole question has been weighed again and again from the first publication in New Zealand of the Report of the House of Commons. The feeling of anxiety is of too long standing to be capable of any sudden excitement. For all defects of clearness of expression I am ready to apologize, the more readily because Earl Grey himself has had the misfortune to be misunderstood not only by myself, but by the London press, by the whole New Zealand Company, by the resident body of colonists, and by Lord Stanley. If your Excellency, after following out the course of the public documents, has arrived at a clearer understanding of Earl Grey's instructions, this is an advantage, which in its nature is peculiar to yourself. It seem to be imputed to me, as a fault, that I have adduced no argument against the principle which I presumed to deny. My answer must be, that I found no argument adduced in support of it. Whether a hasty newspaper article, written not to justify, but to condemn the unlawful usurpation of land be a train of reasoning which " must be generally admitted" as applicable to the case of New Zealand, " and as fatal to the right which has been claimed for its aboriginal inhabitants," is a question which I would willingly submit to Earl Grey's candid decision. To us it seems that there is not a true step in the whole train of Dr. Arnold's reasoning. If the " right of property go along with labour, how can the land of savage tribes, who have bestowed but little labour on the soil, be usurped by civilized people from a distant country who have not laboured upon it at all." Nor can I agree to the assertion that " civilized nations have never scrupled to take possession of countries inhabited only by tribes of savages," when I know that the instructions issued, as early as 1626, to Endicot, the first Governor of Massachusetts Bay, were "to endeavour to purchase the title of the savages that we may avoid the least scruple of intrusion." Nor can it be admitted that " our fathers went to America and took possession of the mere hunting grounds of the Indians," when we find it stated upon the highest legal authorities " that the original Indian nations were regarded and dealt with as proprietors of the soil which they claimed and occupied," and their title was extinguished "by fair purchase under the sanction of treaties." Nor is it easy to see how this principle, which is not true even of the hunting tribes of Indians, can be applicable to the race of New Zealand with its agricultural population. Still less can this reasoning be assumed to be generally admitted, when it is expressly denied by Sully, Blackstone, and others ; and when Mr. Chancellor Kent in speaking of the same principles, when asserted by the Rev. Mr. Bulkly, of Connecticut in 1724, styles them " loose opinions and latitudinary doctrines. ' Nor can we concur in ridiculing or censuring our one treaty of Waitangi, when we know that the United States of America have in the course of 60 years made 218 treaties with the various tribes of North America. With every disposition to venerate the character of Dr. Arnold I cannot safely accept, as conclusive authority, a hasty composition, every statement of which is at variance with facts. And as Earl Grey has now claimed the opiniou of the Chief Justice of New Zealand in support of his statemsnt, that the views expressed by his Lordship are those which " nearly 300 years have been uniformly recognized," I beg most respectfully to submit to his Lordship's consideration a simple statement of facts, drawn up by Chief Justice Martin, from which the above extracts have been made. This statement has not been published, and has been restricted to the most limited range of private circulation. Some surprise seems to have been caused by the words " God being my helper," and they have been quoted as a proof that the protest was written under those feelings of excitement the existence of which I have already denied.

It cannot be unknown to any Englishman, that when a witness is sworn to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, he uses the same form of words in ratification of his oatb. If it should ever be my duty to speak the whole truth to my New Zealand people to guard them against the garbled statements of disaffected and disagreeing men, I trust that I shall be enabled to do it under a sense of the Divine presence, and in hope of Divine guidance and help. When I used the words " befitting my statioD," I thought that I should make it clear that a sense of religious duty to the people, whose faith may stand or fall according to their opinion of out veracity, was the main if not the only cause of my interference. A few verbal remarks seem to be required upon some expressions in my protest, which Earl Grey has marked with inverted commas, as if disapproving of the terms used. In the first paragraph of his Despatch, his Lordship seems to object to the word " Instructions," and corrects the word by referring to his despatch of 23rd December last ; the paper from which I quoted was headed, " Draft Instructions to Governor Grey." In the same way the word " doctrine" is always marked as if it were mine ; whereas his Lordship will find that I took it from his own Despatch in the following sentence : " From this doctrine, whether it be maintained on the grounds of religion, or of morality or expediency, I entirely dissent." These may seem to be trifling points, but I would not be supposed to be guilty of intentional disrespect even in the language of my protest. There isonly one other charge implied, rather than expressed in Lord Grey's Despatch, which I felt it necessary to deny ; the imputation, I mean, of opposing your Excellency in your plans for the good of New Zealand. The only two instances upon which I have ever offered any remarks upon acts of the Government, were the military executions at Porirua and Wanganui, and I am much deceived if your Excellency resented either the matter or the manner of my observations. It is my earnest desire, as stated by Mr. Gladstone on my behalf, to abstain from all political interference. The relation on which I stand to the native people is almost the only subject which brings me into communication with the Government. So far am I from being conscious of any opposition to your Excellency's plans, that I seem to have been engaged in common with all the missionary body in carrying out the plans which your Excellency has been enabled to complete. It is a mistaken notion, prevalent I believe in England, that New Zealand has been pacified by force of arms, after all moral influence and teaching had failed. We appeal to your Excellency's own experience whether you did not find, on your arrival, a body of faithful allies whom the influence of former Governors, and the instructions of their missionaries, had conciliated to the British interest. Before a true estimate can be formed either of the general state of New Zealand, or of the character of her public men, the earlier history of the colony must be connected with the more recent. The task of assigning to each event its more leading causes, and of awarding to every man his own measure of censure or of approbation, must be left to the future historian of New Zealand. But we can discern even now, in all parts of the islands, the traces of an active influence which has withstood the usual tendency to separation between the two races, and has promoted a cordial alliance. To the value of the assistance of our native allies your Excellency's despatches have done ample justice. But the men who fought by your side had long before pledged to their missionaries, and to your Excellency's predecessor, the faith which they confirmed and renewed to you. It is then no disparagement to the British arms to say that this country has been saved not by the force of British arms, but, under Divine Providence, by your Excellency's conservative policy and moral influence acting upon a state of things already prepared, and combining with similar ferces already in operation. When I speak of the effects of the missionary influence, I would be understood to represent the whole missionary body, without religious distinctions ; for all, I firmly believe, have been equally earnest in the same work of repressing discontent and recommending peace. For myself I have only to say, that whatever may be the opinion formed of my conduct by her Majesty's Government, to who&e censures I shall always bow with loyal and dutiful respect, to have taken my part in so great a work, however feebly and imperfectly, is a sufficient ground of comfort to one who loves New Zealand as a second England, and who could not, for the love he bears his adopted

country, do anything to endanger her peace, or to retard her progress. I have, &c. (Signed) G. A. New Zealand. H. E. Governor Grey, &c, &c. 1 have the honour to request that a copy of this letter may be forwarded to the Right Honorable Earl Grey, with the accompanying statement drawn up by Chief Justice Martin, an 1 printed for private circulation only.

(No. 81.) No. 23. Extract of a Despatch from Governor Grey to Earl Grey. Dated Goverraent House, Wellington, September 1, 1848. "Adverting to my Despatch No. 76, of the 23rd August, 1848, I beg to state that I wrote it in a hurry in order not to lose an opportunity of sending it to England ; and, by my inadvertently omitting a few words in the postscript, I may perhaps have conveyed a wrong impression. " The postscript should have been — "•P. S. I should state to your Lordship that I have never received from the Chief Justice a copy of his pamphlet, and only knew that he was the author of it from the Bishop's telling me so when he gave me a copy of it two or three days before the Ist of August, and from the Bishop's letter to your Lordship/ "Perhaps your Lordship will be kind enough to allow this error in my despatch to be rectified."

(No. 89.) No. 14. Copy of a Despatch from Earl Grey to Governor Grey. Downing-street, December 20, 1848. Sir. — I have to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch No. 76, of the 23rd August last, enclosing a letter to me from the Bishop of New Zealand, and a printed copy of " Remarks" upon my Despatch of the 23rd December, 1846, which I learn from the Bishop's letter to be from the pen of Chief Justice Martin. I have learnt with much satisfaction that the Bishop's " Protest," which gave occasion to this correspondence, was communicated only to a few of his friends. When I received it, it was undoubtedly my impression that it was intended for more general circulation. The very form of a " protest," which, according to ordinary language is a document intended for public use, the solemnity of the expressions employed, and the declaration which it conveyed of the Bishop's intentions towards the natives, all contributed to lead me to this conclusion ; nor did it occur to me that it was only meant as a private remonstrance addressed to her Majesty's Government. No one, as I observed in my Despatch of 30th November 1847, could have stronger claims to be heard in the way of such remonstrance than the Bishop of New Zealand, and I readily acknowledge that many of the comments made on his " Protest" in that Despatch were unnecessary, now that I find it was written with a view of its being so used, and not for publication in the colony. 3. I concur with you in thinking that it is to be regretted that the Chief Justice should have printed, and allowed to circulate, although unpublished, the " Remarks" which accompany the Bishop's letter and this, not only for the reasons you have given, but also on account of the declarations which it contains of his opinions on some questions of a character partly legal, and which may be brought before him directly or incidentally in his judicial character. 4. With respect to the general subject of these papers, I have only to add, that I find nothing in them calculated to alter the views which I have had occasion already to express, particularly in answering the recent memorial of the Wesleyan Committee. But as the question appears now to have assumed rather an abstract than a practical character, there would be no advantage in prolonging the discussion, or in noticing the further observations which the Bishop has now made with reference to it. 5. You express in part of this Despatch your fears that you may not have borne in your correspondence sufficiently ample testimony to the cooperation with which the government of New Zealand has met from the Bishop and clergy, I have always derived from that correspondence impressions that you were fully conscious of the services which they have rendered, and anxious, on every fitting occasion, to acknowledge them to her Majesty's Government. I have &c. (Signed) Grey. Governor Grey, &c, &c.