AJ-No;

occupation of a large tract of country, and for the establishment of an extended line of posts not the defence of the-ColoHjvand-which it is contrary to-ihe-spwit of the recent- despatches^ from Mr. Cardwell that the troops should continue to occupy. Those letters do not in any manner indicate my opinion as to the force requisite for the defence of the Colony at the present time. It is therefore almost unnecessary that I should notice that part of your Excellency's letter. I would however observe with regard to Taranaki, that when a detachment of 250 men of the 70th Eegiment was withdrawn from that station in February last, it was represented to me by Colonel AVarre that that small reduction of his force would oblige him' to remain on the defensive, and that should the rebels shew themselves in strength, he might be obliged to call out a portion of the militia. It is not surprising, therefore, on a further reduction of his force by the withdrawal of 200 Military Settlers by your Excellency, without consulting Colonel Warre or myself, that I should have made the remark alluded to in the 6th paragraph of your letter, or that I should have stated as you mention in the Bth paragraph, that Colonel Warre's force was barely sufficient to hold all the country it occupied, and that he consequently could not move southwards to co-operate with me. Since then the state of affairs at Taranaki has admitted of the establishment of two additional posts on the coast to the north and south of the settlement; and Colonel Warre reports, that if the Ministers are in earnest about dispensing with the services of the regular troops, they cannot do better than try the experiment at Taranaki. In regard to the Waikato frontier, I expressed no opinion myself in my letters of the 22nd April and 3rd May, regarding the sufficiency or otherwise of the force stationed on that frontier; but I thought it my duty to let you know the opinion of Brigadier-General Carey, the officer in command. I believe that no disturbance is to be apprehended in that quarter, where not a shot has been fired since the suspension of hostilities more than a year ago. I also thought it right to forward for your information the report I received from Colonel Greer, of an intended attack upon our allies, the Arawas; but I believe that Colonel Greer considered such an attack as improbable as I did. If any disturbance should occur at Tauranga, it will probably arise from the uncertainty in which tho natives have long been kept in respect to the confiscated land. With reference to the Wereroa Pa, I stated in my letter of the 17th March, alluded to in the 7th paragraph of your letter, that when I was at Nukumaru, in January, I did not think it advisable to attack the pa with the force I then had. Between that time and the 17th March reinforcements arrived at Wanganui from other parts of the island; and as far as the strength of the force was concerned the pa might have been attacked at the latter date. The remark alluded to in tho sth paragraph of your letter was made by me in reply to an opinion you had expressed in a private letter of the 13th March, and which appeared to me not warranted by the state of affairs at the time, viz.: that everything that was taking place led you to the conclusion that the natives would soon submit in nearly all parts of the island. Without taking a gloomy view of the state of affairs, I have never been so sanguine in that respect as your Excellency. I can see no reason to expect that the natives will ever make a formal submission, and I think that all we can hope for is, that the punishment we have inflicted on some of the rebel tribes will induce tho others to remain quiet for the future. I need take no further notice of the passages you have quoted from my letters, which, as I have observed, have little or no bearing on the question of the withdrawal of the troops, which must be decided with reference to the present state of affairs, and to the recentinstructious from Her Majesty's Government. I have alluded to the present state of Taranaki, the Waikato frontier, and Tauranga, and I know of nothing that has occurred in the other parts of the island, since the beginning of the present month, to justify the opinion that our having left the Wereroa Pa untouched has had a prejudicial effect upon the Natives, and rendered our position in the country worse than it was before, With reference to this subject, however, I beg to remind your Excellency that, on the 17th March, I wrote to you offering to attack the pa if you wished it, but was directed by your letter of the 22nd March to continue to advance towards Taranaki, as far as the means at my disposal would admit, and to let you know when I found I could not get further than some particular point, in order that the Colonial Government might determine what it would do ; that on the 7th April, having occupied the coast as far as Waingongoro, and having only about 800 men remaining, I applied to you for further instructions agreeably to your request, and was informed by your letter of the 17th April that you would communicate with me on the subject when you had had an opportunity of conferring with your Eesponsible Advisers ; that not hearing from you again from that date to the 29th April, I proceeded to Auckland for the purpose of receiving your instructions and to be at hand to furnish you with any information you might require; that I arrived in Auckland on the night of the 30th April, and on the Ist May addressed a letter to your Excellency, explaining the object of my coming to Auckland, and a note expressing my readiness to wait upon you; to which communications I received a letter in reply (the tone of which greatly surprised me at the time, but was no longer a matter of surprise after seeing the Memorandum addressed by Ministers to your Excellency on the Bth April), conveying no instructions, but intimating to me your wish, and that of your Eespousible Advisers, that the Colony should in future carry on operations from its own resources, and informing me that after due consideration you would again communicate with me ; that on the 9th May I informed you that I had received instructions from England for the withdrawal of five regiments, and requesting that you would acquaint me with your views on the subject; that I have afterwards received from you three letters, dated 11th, 12th, and 19th May, the last of which alone contained an answer to my inquiry ; and I must again observe that your letter of 11th May, sanctioning the temporary abandonment of some of the posts was in contradiction to your former letter of the 17th April, which gave me no discretion on that point. After all these delays you now propose that the Wereroa Pa should be M

45

GOVERNOR AND LIETTT.-GENERAL CAMERON.