A.—No. 5

very brief and exceptional one, in -which all subjects of dispute were avoided, in order to enable His Excellency to extricate himself from the embarrassment in which his collision with Mr. Whitaker's Government had involved himself and the Colony. I now come to His Excellency's Despatch of the 7th of April, in which His Excellency asserts that every one of the important statements in my letter to Mr. Adderley, as to the breach of faith with the "Natives at Ngaruawahia " are wholly and absolutely untrue." I will first assert, in reply to this, that I am prepared to prove, by Native evidence, that the conduct of the Governor was considered to be a breach of faith. It is exceedingly difficult for me, at an hour's notice, to make out from the large volumes of papers the published evidence on this point. I particularly, however, beg to call attention to William Thompson's letter to Bishop Pompallier, published on page 88, E. No. 2, of the Appendix for 1864. It is quite clear that after Bangiriri the Natives were thoroughly broken, and prepared for submission and peace, and I have received much information which leaves no doubt on my mind on this subject. As regards Sir George Grey's assertion that he did write to Pene Pukewhau after the army had got to Ngaruawahia, I beg to point out that the letter to which His Excellency refers was published for the first time in the Appendix for 186-1, some weeks after my letter. It was not included in the papers for 1863, the only information open to the public when I wrote to Mr. Adderley. My statements were based on the published documents in E. No. sd, pages 5-8 ; and I am sure you will perceive that the inference I drew was a fair and natural one. But I assert that Sir George Grey did regard his letter of the 6th December, 1863. as involving an engagement to meet the chiefs at Ngaruawahia, for he was on the point of starting for that place. The reasons why he did not go arc stated in a note appended to No. 6, page 3, E. 2, Appendix for 1864. The broad fact remains, which I believe to be unquestionable, that the Natives were fully prepared to come to terms at that time ; that a satisfactory peace might have been made, but that the steps which would have led to it were abandoned, owing to a miserable squabble between His Excellency and his Ministers—to which, therefore, may be attributed all the loss of life and of treasure since that time. Lastly, with regard to the promised inquiry into the Waitara question, Sir George Grey says that he tried all he could to get the Natives to agree to that inquiry. I reply, he had promised to make that inquiry himself, and he did not make it for eighteen months. The moment he did make it, he found that further inquiry was unnecessary, and he gave up the Waitara at once. Had his Excellency made that inquiry eighteen months before, he would probably have taken the same course. I entirely agree with His Excellency that Englishmen will not sit quietly down and see other persons in possession of their homes ; and it may be that their compulsory acquiescence in that wrong, during eighteen months, in which they received no single word of sympathy or sign of assistance from the Governor, may account for the deeply seated distrust of His Excellency which characterises the European population of Taranaki. There is not the slightest doubt that, had the Waitara question been honestly grappled at once, the restitution of Tataraimaka would have followed, and that, in the view of a Governor who had expressed such strong opinions as to the cruel wrongs done at Waitara, whose language, if it meant anything, fully justified the resistance, of the Native tribes to that act of aggression, the settlement of the Waitara question was the sine qua non of peace ; certain it is, that William Thompson and the chiefs of Waikato offered to go down to Taranaki and effect the restitution of Tataraimaka by peaceful means, and the Governor deliberately refused their oft'er. But it is no part of my present object to intrude my own views upon Her Majesty's Government. I wrote to Mr. Adderley in order to disabuse the minds of the English of the idea that His Excellency Sir George Grey was standing between the Natives and the rapacity of the Colonists. Amidst all that the Colonists have suffered, nothing is more galling than to see a great and ill-deserved reputation for humanity erected at their expense. AVhen the Colonists are once left with the power to act under their Constitution, and are charged with the pecuniary liabilities of their own acts, it will be evident that war has not been their policy, and that when it has seemed to be so, it was only under the sore temptation offered by a struggle in which the acquisition of land and the extension of commerce were paid for by the lives of English soldiers and the money of English taxpayers ; such has been the policy of the present Governor of New Zealand. I have, &c, The Eight Hon. Edward Cardwell, M.P. James Edwaed FitzGerald. Enclosure 2 to No. 40. J. E. FitzGebald, Esq., to the Hon. the Colonial Secbetaby. Sib,— Christchurch, 17th April, 1865. I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter enclosing, by command of His Excellency, a copy of two Despatches with enclosures, which His Excellency has addressed to the Secretary of State, in order that I may have the opportunity of substantiating or recalling certain statements made by me in a letter to Mr. Adderley, which His Excellency considers to be untrue. I shall be obliged if you will carry to His Excellency the Governor my grateful thanks for the opportunity he has afforded me of seeing those Despatches, and my sincere regret that I am unable to unsay or modify any of the statements contained in my letter to Mr. Adderley. As it was clearly impossible for me to remain under the imputation of having stated what was untrue, I addressed a letter to the Secretary of State, a copy of which I enclose for His Excellency's information. Sir George Grey only does me justice in saying that he has no intention of imputing to me any intention of purposely perverting the truth. I have only stated facts as they appear to me from information on which at present I rely, and it is a matter of extreme regret to mo that nothing contained in the Despatches of which copies have been forwarded to me appears to require me to alter the views I had formed as to the facts referred to in my letter to Mr. Adderley. The one statement in my letter, that "no communication" was made to the Natives after Rangiriri which was inaccurate, I cannot help, because His Excellency had not seen fit to publish the

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DESPATCHES FROM THE GOVERNOR OF NEW