A.—No. la.

124

DESPATCHES FROM THE GOVERNOR OE NEW

drawal of the Troops, the retirement of the General Commanding, and the recall of the Governor. 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 caniot 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 few isolated settlements which on your first arrival were struggling into life, have multiplied throughout the length and breadth of the land into numerous thriving communities. Boads, farms, villages, towns, churches, schools, and all the conditions of civilized life, now occupy the then untraversed wilderness, and, above all, the people, animated by loyalty to the Queen, desire to exercise the constitutional liberty they possess in a manner not unworthy of the traditions of the great Empire to which it is their pride to belong. In contemplation of the early close of Your Excellency's official relation to the Colony as Her Majesty's Bepresentative, we respectfully beg you to accept our hearty wishes for your future happiness and welfare. D. Monro, Speaker.

No. 53. Copy of a DESEATCH from Governor Sir George Grey, K.C.8., to the Right Hon. the Duke of Buckingham. (No. 96.) Government House, Wellington, My Lord Duke, — 17th September, 1867. Adverting to my Despatch No. 93, of the 7th of September last, enclosing a copy of the Address which was to be presented to me by the House of Representatives, I have the honor now to transmit for your Grace's information a copy of the Reply which I returned to that Address. I have, &c, His Grace the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. G. GREY.

Enclosure in No. 53. Beplt to the Address from the House of Bepbesentatives. Mr. Speakee and Gentlemen of the House of BEPBESENTATrvES, — The assurances you give me of your regret at my removal from the Government of this Colony are very gratifying to me. To yourselves I shall always feel grateful for the support you have invariably afforded me, for the efforts you have made to provide the large sums requisite to secure the pacification of the Colony, and for the courage and resolution with which you have met and overcome all difficulties. I agree with you in believing, 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 this Colony has made noble exertions to suppress a most dangerous rebellion. In striving, whatever might be the peril of the moment, so to accomplish this that the rights and privileges which belong to all subjects of the British Empire should be preserved in as far as possible inviolate, New Zealand statesmen have given a worthy example. Whatever obloquy I have incurred in aiding you in the duties you have thus performed, I can bear with cheerfulness ; and I shall solace myself in after years with the remembrance of the language you have used in this Address, and of the wishes you have expressed for my welfare and happiness. Government House, Wellington, G. Gret. 10th September, 1867.

No. 51. Copy of a DESEATCH from Governor Sir George Grey, K.C.8., to the Right Hon. the Duke of Buckingham. (No. 97.) Government House, Wellington, My Lord Duke, — ■■ 17th September, 1867. Adverting to my Despatch No. 71, of the sth ultimo, I have the honor to transmit for your Grace's information, a copy of a letter which I have directed