DESPATCHES FROM THE GOVERNOR OF NEW

A.—No. la.

70

Enclosure 1 in No. 32. Address from the Superintendent, Nelson, to Governor Sir George Gret, K.C.8., and Beplt. To His Excellency Sir George Gret, Knight Commander of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath, Governor and Commander-in-Chief in and over Her Majesty's Colony of New Zealand and its Dependencies, and Vice-Admiral of the same, &c. Mat it please Your Excellenct, — I am happy that my first public act as Superintendent of this Province is to congratulate your Excellency, on behalf of its inhabitants, upon your arrival in Nelson, and to express their gratification at having the opportunity to welcome you amongst them. An interval of many years has passed since you last visited this part of the Colony ; but, happily for us, that interval has not been marked by any events of so serious a nature as to call for your personal interposition. Without being able to boast of its progress as exceptionally rapid, Nelson may claim a fair share in the advance of the Colony in population, commerce, and general prosperity, whilst it has been exempt from those sufferings and vicissitudes which, owing to the disaffection of a portion of the Native population, we have had to deplore in some other parts of New Zealand. Your Excellency will, I hope, be able, during your stay here, to convince yourself that all those local institutions which were entrusted by our free constitution to the support aud management of the people themselves, are in a satisfactory condition; and lam confident that our Province may depend upon your warm interest and earnest endeavours to promote all further measures calculated to develop her resources and secure her welfare. I can assure your Excellency that, in loyalty toHer Majesty the Queen, in obedience to the laws, and in attachment to the constitution of Great Britain, the people of this Province are unsurpassed iu any part of the Colony. Oswald Curtis, Superintendent. Beplt. Your Honor, — I return you my most sincere thanks for the congratulations upon my arrival at Nelson, which you have offered me upon the part of the inhabitants. It is with much pleasure I revisit a place to which I have long felt a great attachment, and a remembrance of the beauties of which, and of my friendship for many amongst its inhabitants, has, for many years, been with me in distant countries and in tho midst of many different scenes. Naturally, therefore, upon my return here is it with the greatest satisfaction that I see signs everywhere around mo of the steady advance of this portion of New Zealand in population, commerce, and general prosperity; and that I hear from you that the Province of Nelson has been so happily exempted from sufferings and vicissitudes which we have had to deplore in other parts of this Colony. I shall gladly, whilst here, do my best to make myself acquainted with the state of your various local institutions, and I shall share with you in the pride and pleasure with which you will I know bo able to point out to me their satisfactory and efficient state. You may rely that to aid yourselves and the Provincial Government in your efforts to advance the prosperity of Nelson will always be an object of earnest solicitude to myself and my Besponsible Advisers. The warm expressions of the people of this Province of loyalty and attachment to our Queen shall be made known to Her Majesty, by whom, I can assure you, they will be most graciously received. G. Gret.

Enclosure 2 in No. 32. Address from the Artizans' Mutual Improvement Association, Nelson, to Governor Sir George Grey, K.C.8., and Beplt. To His Excellency Sir George Gret, K.C.8., Governor of New Zealand, &c., &c. — Your Excellency is desired to accept the following Tributary Verses adopted by the members of the Artizans' Mutual Improvement Association of Nelson, and presented to your Excellency in testimony of their esteem for your Excellency, and their love and loyalty to the Queen, and the institutions of the Empire over which Her Majesty reigns:— Welcome! illustrious Sir, your visit fans A thousand years have perished in the past The flame of loyalty in every breast; Since Alfred's laws pronounced his people free, We, too, have left our toils as Artizans, And while the bright sun shines these laws shall last, To hail your presence as our City's guest. In all their glorious power and purity. We welcome you to Nelson's sunny clime, The pride of nations Britain since has been, Respected substitute of our good Queen, And still is all her children can desire Than whom no Monarch on the roll of time Who love their institutions, and their Queen Has by a people so beloved been. With all the love that patriot bosoms fire. Both for your own and for that Lady's sake, In every clime her honoured flag's unfurled, We gladly hail you to this city fair ; Her ships of commerce traverse every sea And while with us you may your sojourn make, To stamp her glorious impress on the world, AU we can give, right welcome you shall share. And point the path to true prosperity. We deem you, Sir, that honoured golden link Though we are here that land's antipodes, That truly joins us to our Fatherland; To shield our toils her institutions bloom Thence to express ourselves why should we shrink, In all their beauty o'er the destinies Or fail to welcome you with heart and hand ? Of these lov'd Islands, our adopted home.