CAPTAIN PERCIVAL.

Tauranga Argus and Opotiki Reporter, Volume 1, Issue 22, 20 April 1867, Page 2

CAPTAIN PERCIVAL.

None but those acquainted'with the duties of paymaster of a regiment, can conceive the incalculable amount of responsibility that the ofhce entails. Ile has to trave at all times, here. there, and everywhere, carrving large sums of monev /or the payment of tlie men ; for which he is held' responsibl-e by tlie Government, who alford j him but few facilities ■ for safely handing over the money to the prope'r parties. At the present moment, instance the fact, that Captain Pereival has been forced to charter a small boat lavlng in the liarbor, called the Hazard, to go to Opotiki, because he was advised by the authorilies -here that it was utterly unsafe to travel /something like eighty miles across a dangerous countrv) with a large sum of money in order to meet tlie engagements of the Government with the Regiment, and through contrary winds has been delayed from proceeding even that way with danger to his life, a risk of the boat upsetting and losing the men's pay. Captain Percival has gained golden opinious from all that he has come in contact with during his paymastership fnow something over two years), and it behoves the Government to assist liim in every possible way to promptly meet tbe engagements of the lst Waikato Regiment. If he does not arrive here and other places to time all the onus his at once put on his shoulders — manv of the men remarking when asked to pay an-account " Oh ! we cannot do so (ours being a military population) till the paymaster arrives ; " and we can assure our readers, from good information, he has paid monies out of his own purse with the risk of never again seeing it, rather than be bored day after day. We trust the Government will look to this and adopt some other plan in future to assist Captain Percival to be at the lst \Vaikato settlements to time, for there cannot be tlie slightest doubt it comes very hard on the men, and they giving the matter no consideration, vent their spleen on the paymaster. In conclusion we may remark that he arrived by the Lord Ashley, 011 the 5th instant, from Napier, liaving returned overland to the latter place from the Wairoa after paying the'Hawkes Bay military settlers at that post.