E.—No. 9a

and whose name therefore he was not permitted to mention,)" —not by any Catholic person of course—but for avoiding to give credit to the Roman Catholic mission. At that time the Natives of Manaia were induced by your Lordship to leave their locality, and to come to St. Mary's College Land, in order to receive there instruction and education, and indeed it has been very advantageous and salutary to them for their repentance, their religious feelings, and morality of almost every one of them has given great satisfaction. People of very many tribes of New Zealand, have successively been admitted and trained as pupils of St. Mary's College, during more than thirteen years, and their knowledge of reading, writing, of catechism, and their practice of Christian life, show- evidently that good seeds have been sown in their souls at St. Mary's College by instruction and education. We have the consolation now to reap what we have sown, viz., the good fruits of religion, salvation, and civilization. The Natives themselves preserve a great gratitude, respect, affection, and devotedness towards your Lordship, their Clergy, and School Teachers. Thanks be to God, and glory be to Him in the work of His grace, without which any exertion (even the most wise schemes) cannot succeed for Christian education and civilization. 3rdly. Now what has been said here of the good fruits from good seeds or good cultivation may have a right application to the pupil of hard hearing, on whom sharp remarks are put in the report of Mr. Taylor, at the 4th page, lines 17 and following. I can state, with all the persons who may know well that pupil, that although more often occupied than the others with industry and reciprocal service in the kitchen, he is one of the most satisfactory pupils in reading, writing, catechism, arithmetic, and other matters of school, in cleanliness, piety, obedience, and in good, real morality. Now, could such fruits of instruction and education be gathered without the trouble or labours necessary for it, viz., without a due and previous good cultivation ? Here, as elsewhere in the foregoing statement, the fruits of the pupils show the goodness of the College and of the charitable exertion of the Teachers. Both the Establishment and the Managers cannot deserve the expressions, rather outrageous, of the Reporter, page 8, line 19; expressions which would be unbecoming in my School, and which 1 cannot repeat here, leavin"them where they are for a gentleman's pen different to my simple one. 4thly. At all events, from all the reflections made in this letter about the instruction, education, and support of the Natives, it is not difficult for impartial judges to see the misrepresentation, or the mistake at least, of the Report of Mr. Taylor, specially in the following passages:— pa<'e 6, lines 7, 8, 9, where he says, " thirteen pupils are ineligible representatives of the Government money." "They (page 6, lines 10 and 11) receive little or no education." "And very little (page 6, lines 11, 12, and 13) in the shape of food or clothes from the Managers." othly. As for the bag of rice of which the Report (page 8, lines 1, 2, and 3) says that, according to my own testimony, it was the only quantity of food given to the pupils, I state, that I spoke of it as something present in my memory, without excluding the other articles of expenditure, supplied to them by the College Administration, either during that first quarter of the year 0 r during the preceding one, as it has been already explained at the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs of the •Ith page of this letter. But what could be added here for the justification of the local College Administration, it is that, although during that first quarter of the year the pupils of the College land hud the use of their glebe produces, still the expenditure, amounting to about £62, exceeded the income from the Government by about £35. This observation at once shows that a bag of rice was not the only thing given to the pupils. What is said now at the 6th page of the Report, from line Uth to the 19th, is quite refuted by the 2nd paragraph of page 2 of my present observations. 6thly. At the 6th page again of the Report, from the 20th line to the beginning of the 22nd, the memory of the Reporter seems to have failed : for I said to him, the time for the School was in the morning from 10 to 12, instead'of his following misrepresentation.—" The nominal time devoted to instruction is from 12 to 1." By such a mis-statement there is one hour less given to instruction, besides the misplacement of the hours stated by the Teacher to him. 7thly. A s for all Ihe statements of the 7th page of the Report, lam surprised and afflicted to read such things, I am obliged to say, for the sake of truth and justice, that such statements are as contrary to my conversation with the Reporter as they are ridiculous in their wording—(page 7, lines from 6to the 16th ; page 8, the first two words of the line 19 ; and page 10, line 12). lam indeed surprised that they belong to the pen of a gentleman, writing to another gentleman, a high officer of the Government, as is the Minister for Native Affairs. To say nothing more for my defence, my Lord, and to keep silence before your Lordship, is for me a duty of respect as well as a proof of a justification not wanted. The above ridiculous expressions confirm not a little my opinion that all the manuscript of the Reporter is something belonging more to a hostile aggression or unkind feelings towards a Catholic institution and institutors than to any duty of devotedness towards the good of instruction and education. The expressions of the Reporter could show that he thinks that he deals with a deceitful institution and deceivers, who have no conscience, no probity, or no capacity, no education. I do not know well in history the Colleges of which he speaks at page 10, line 12, but I am sure that the pupils of St. Mary's shall never be taught to throw at men honourable by their instruction and education the expressions written page S, line 19, against the College and its Managers. Let it be as it may be, I will not judge that Reporter ;but I hasten to finish my observations by the few following ones:—

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