A.—No. 1a

GQ

DESPATCHES EROM THE GOVERNOR OE NEW

afforded to the Colonial Government to place the facts of each case before the public. Ministers may instance the case of tho purchase of the Waitotara Block, in which the General commanding Her Majesty's Forces thought it hot inconsistent with his duty to send home without any communication with the Governor the statement of a private individual traducing the character of a high official in the service of the Colony, by stigmatising the act in which he had been officially engaged as an " iniquitous job." Ministers would refer also to the startling calumnies sent home by Colonel Weare in which accusations are brought against His Excellency, the Commander of the Forces, and the Colony, of so serious a character, that nothing but a public investigation can possibly meet the requirements of the case. It is true that these charges were in part withdrawn by Colonel Weare on the eve of his departure for England, but Ministers are of opinion that had the Imperial Government been properly jealous of the honor of the persons against whom these charges were made, it would have insisted on a public investigation. The story of the imputed atrocities might, had Colonel Weare's request been acted upon, have been circulated through the length and breadth of England, estranging the affections and alienating the respect of our fellow countrymen in Great Britain, without the Colonial Government being aware of the existence of such calumnies. Ministers might adduce other instances of a similar kind, and more notably Mr. Commissary General Jones' letter to the Assistant Military Secretary of the 20th August, 1865, and Mr. DeputyCommissary General Strickland's letters of the Bth November, 1866, as to which latter Ministers will shortly make a separate communication. Grave charges against the Colonial Government and the Colony, and an objectionable system of secret calumny have not, Ministers feel bound to say, met at the hands of Secretaries of State for the Colonies that indignant rejection which the Governor aud Her Majesty's Colonial subjects had equally a right to expect when their reputation and conduct were secretly attacked. E. W. Stafford.

Sub-Enclosure 1 to Enclosure in No. 30. His Honor D. McLean, Esq., to the Hon. E. W. Stafford. Sir,— Napier, 9th October, 1866. I regret to have to report to you that since my return from Wellington the position assumed by the body of armed Hau Haus who have been for some time encamped a few miles from Napier, has become such as to require serious preparations to be made for the security of life and property in the Province. When in Wellington, about the Ist and 2nd of October instant, I acquainted you that there was then an armed body of men numbering about one hundred, at a place called Petani, distant eight miles from Napier Town, and that a larger body of Natives were encamped at Te Pohui, a wooded position sixteen miles in the rear of Petani. These people were all Hau Haus, and, as I informed you, they were reported by Colonel Whitmore and other settlers to be committing depredations on the property of those persons in whose neighbourhood they had taken up their quarters. On my return to this place I found the position of affairs very much as I had reported them to the Government. The resident Natives at once came to me and confessed their conviction that the Hau Haus had come to fight, and that in their opinion they were supported by the dissaffccted people in the Taupo country and Waikato. From these, and from the friendly Natives on the East Coast, I received information of projected movements by the Hau Haus which went to establish the fact that a plan was organized under which a general movement of the disaffected Natives was to take place shortly, and that this place, if feasible, was to be the point of attack, but if not, then an attempt was to be made to attack Wairoa and Poverty Bay. This place however was to be preferred, as it offered larger inducements in the shape of plunder and food than in the case of the other places proposed to be attacked. On Thursday last, the 4th October, the party of Hau Haus who had been at Petani moved from that place and marched to a pa called Omarunui, which is situated on the Meanee Biver, and is in the centre of tho settled agricultural district adjoining Napier Town, and known as the Meanee. On the approach of the Hau Haus the Native owners and residents of Omarunui vacated their pa and took refuge in the Pa Whakairo, the head-quarters of our resident Natives, and which is situated about a mile from Omarunui. The Hau Haus at first numbered about one hundred armed men, and they have since been reinforced by another party of forty ; but they have considerable reinforcements at the Pohue and Titiokura, the exact number of which I am unable to obtain a reliable account of, but which probably number another 150 men. In addition to these forces, the general opinion of the resident Natives, and my own impression agrees with theirs, is, that so soon as the struggle commences they will be largely reinforced by Ngatimaniapoto and Ureweras. The Hau Haus on the Meanee are headed by Kingita, Paora Toki, and Panapa, three Natives of known bad character, and the reserve at Titiokura by Bangihiroa and Anaru Matete, both of whom are known as among the most disaffected Natives in the country. I enclose copies of different letters which I have written to these Natives, and the replies they have sent to the same ; also copies of letters which have been addressed to me by the resident Natives on the subject. From these letters you will gather that I have urged them to explain their motives in coming into the district, and desired them to return to their own homes, and that their replies are anything but satisfactory. Mr. Hamlin, the Government Interpreter, who was the bearer of my last letter to them, describes them to be in a sulky and evily-disposed state, and he states that they told him their future conduct whether for good or evil would depend upon the directions their Hau Hau god might give them. In the meantime they are living upon the food of our friendly Natives which they obtained in the Omarunui Pa, and taking up their seed potatoes and eating them, and are killing the cattle of the settlers in their neighbourhood and eating them.