A—No. la.

122

DESPATCHES FROM THE GOVERNOR OE NEW

from the Legislative Council of New Zealand, which they wish me to communicate to your Grace. 2. I propose on another occasion to write to your Grace regarding this Address, if I find it necessary to do so. At present my position is such that I find it dfficult to decide how I should write on the subject. 3. In one short paragraph of your Grace's Despatch, No. 37, of the 18th of June, I am informed in one sentence that I had said that which I never said, and in the next short sentence I am told that my successor in this Government is to be appointed. After so many years service, such an intention so communicated, bears until further explanation, the appearance of intentional censure. 1. This and other circumstances connected with the proceedings of the military authorities, and the position in which the action of the Home Government has placed me, in reference to those proceedings, make me anxious carefully to review the whole question, and to hear further from your Grace before I write upon the matter. I have, &c, His Grace the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. G. GREY.

Enclosure 1 in No. 51. Address from the Legislative Council to Governor Sir Geoege Geet, K.C.B. To His Excellency Sir Geoege Geet, Knight Commander of the Most .Honourable Order of the Bath, Ac, &c, &c. Mat it please Youe Excellenct, — We, the Legislative Council of New Zealand, in Parliament assembled, desire to express to Your Excellency our sincere regret at the intimation which you have received from the Bight Honourable tbe Secretary of State for the Colonies, that your successor in the Government of this ' Colony will bo immediately appointed, and to convey to Your Excellency the assurance of our regard and esteem. Your Excellency's administration of the Government of New Zealand has been distinguished by circumstances of no ordinary character. Twice summoned by our Sovereign to that Government, in times of difficulty and danger, as being especially qualified to meet an emergency —Your Excellency has for fourteen years in all, more than half the age of the Colony, administered its affairs. During that time Your Excellency has spared no exertion of mind and body in tho conscientious discharge of your duties, and in the. promotion of the welfare of both races of Her Majesty's subjects in these islands. Conversant with the customs and language of the Natives, and conspicuous for your influence with them, Your Excellency has shown unwearied industry and activity in their improvement, and has cheerfully encountered peri], privation, and fatigue, whenever you considered your presence among them conducive to their peaceful union with European settlers, and to their advancement in civilization. We respectfully beg to testify our appreciation of the earnest desire evinced by Your Excellency to co-operate at all times with the two Houses of the Legislature, and of the confidence reposed by Your Excellency in their desire to promote the interests of both races. We consider that the Imperial authorities have listened too credulously to accusations of the gravest kind, communicated by non-official informants, against Your Excellency, your Government, and the Colonists generally ; and by acting upon such information before ascertaining its truth or falsehood, they have been led to reiterate against the Colonists most unfounded calumnies, and have produced unfortunate results. We have therefore to express our gratitude for the efforts made by Your Excellency during the last three years to protect the constitutional rights of New Zealand, and to defend its character. We lament that the important constitutional questions connected with the Government of New Zealand, raised by Your Excellency, should be passed over in silence by the Imperial Government. In asserting the honor of the Crown, and maintaining the position of the Governor as representative of the Crown, and the constitutional rights of the Colony, as well as in vindicating its character from unjust aspersion, Your Excellency has put aside all personal considerations, and has not been dismayed by menace or misrepresentation. This spirit of self-sacrifice has well earned for Your Excellency the gratitude of the Colony, and we feel sure that when the passions of the moment have passed away, and personal feeling and prejudice no longer obscure the perception of the distinction between right and wrong, it will be universally admitted that Your Excellency has, in the interests of honor and justice fulfilled a duty to the Crown which you represented and to the Colony which you governed. We cannot conclude this Address without recording our high sense of the services rendered in your private capacity to New Zealand. The love of science for which Your Excellency is distinguished, has specially induced you to support and interest yourself in the creation and development of Institutions calculated to encourage intellectual pursuits. Your Excellency has also imported, at your own cost, valuable animals and plants, for the purpose of acclimatization in this country. Charity has never appealed to you in vain, and your sympathy has always been with the industrious settler in his humblest efforts to aid the progress of colonization. The history of New Zealand is so closely identified with yourself, that the retrospect of its progress must, we are assured, be ever associated in your mind with pleasurable recollections. The