A.—No. 1

22

DESPATCHES FROM THE GOVERNOR OF NEW

if I write as I have written in this Despatch regarding one whose duty it so recently was, as one of Her Majesty's Ministers, to communicate to me Her Majesty's commands ; but in truth there is a misunderstanding on this subject. Within the limits prescribed by the laws of the realm, Her Majesty's Commission, and Her royal instructions and regulations, I owe a becoming obedience to my superior officers, and through a long life I have endeavoured to render that, and the voices of some of the greatest of British statesmen, now passed away, have for more than twenty-five years often stated that I had done so; but if those who may be temporarily placed at the head of the Colonial or War Departments, misled by a system of secret correspondence which has recently sprung up, require-a blind and uninformed acquiescence on my part, in breaches by others of the laws of the Empire, and. of the regulations on which the public service is conducted, and on which the lives, the safety, and welfare of the Queen's subjects in the Possessions entrusted to my care depend, I owe them no obedience in such matters, but I owe a duty to the Queen and Empire, and it is right that I should withstand those who commit violent acts or who support those who do so, with a will as strong as their own, without caring what consequences may fall on myself. 11. If such a course is not pursued, a few statesmen at home might be led ignorantly to inflict serious and lasting injuries upon distant portions of the Empire, and to weaken those strong ties of loyalty and attachment which bind the Colonies to the Mother Country. An example might be given by Imperial officers, which would tend to efface from new countries inhabited by mixed populations the mildness which should adorn civilization, without which indeed it cannot long exist, whilst the safeguards and reverence which should surround human life might be swept away. Violence, supported from want of information or of due reflection, by rank and authority, can only be successfully checked by a determination which, whilst calm and respectful, is yet strong and unconquerable. The public servant who pursues this course, regardless of the loss of much that he has toiled for years to gain, is a true friend of British statesmen, and I trust confidently Lord Carnarvon will do his best to repair the manifest wrongs he has done, and that the course I have pursued will meet with your Grace's support. I have, &c, His Grace the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. G. GREY. P.S. —After I had written this Despatch I observed that a serious error is involved in the statement made by the Earl of Carnarvon in his place in the House of Lords on the loth of July last. His Lordship justified the Despatch he had written to me from London on the Ist of December, 1866, by the contents of a letter written in New Zealand on the Bth of December, 1866. His Lordship is reported to have stated that that letter was before him when he wrote his Despatch of the Ist of December. His Lordship did not, hoAvever, receive that letter until about the 17th of January, 1867, more than six weeks after he had written his Despatch of the Ist of December. G. G.

No. 18. Copt of a DESPATCH from Governor Sir George Grey, X.C.8., to His Grace the Duke of Buckingham. (No. 136.) Government House, Wellington, My Lord Duke, — . 27th November, 1867. I have the honor to transmit to your Grace, for the purpose of beinglaid before the Queen, authenticated copies under tlic Great Seal of the Colony, of Act No. 24, and of Acts No. 63 to 92 inclusive, and of a local and personal Act, together with a. Memorandum by my Responsible Advisers explanatory of these Acts. I have, &c, His Grace the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. G. GREY.