Hokianga >Novr.7th. 1863. My Dear McLean I cannot express to you the pleasure I received from getting a letter from you today dated at Wellington. I thought that distance and your new duties and cares have obliterated the remembrance of such a secluded individual as myself, but I find it is not so and am proportionately glad for tho I could well excuse your silence I was sorry for it you being Just the one man in N. Zealand between whom and myself there has been always a unity of belief on those subjects so important to us all and which have at last eventuated in what we have so long foreseen. Your Commendation of ''Old New Zealand'' is to me more pleasing than all the favourable criticism it has received seeing that you are the best qualified person of all others to give a correct judgement. I am very glad you like it and should fancy some few touches in it will bother the ''Maori Doctors'' a little. I think I revenged you a little on Fenton the Great in a few lines about ''Ko nga ture'' May the Lord be praised! The Doctors are gone to the Dl. fairly doubled up - ''The oracles are dumb'' -but the evil they have done lives after them and will cost a gallon of blood for every bottle of ink they have expended to put it right. You say truly you and I are not the enemies of the natives, truly I hope not, but as their friends we must feel that it has become a dire necessity that their turbulence which has been in every way encouraged be quelled by force. This be done but will it be done? I hope so but there are causes of famlure yet dormant which may yet develpp themselves unless we act with an iron determination to go on to the end at all cost and all risk and still being on guard against the cunning wiles and deceitful submissions which may be made by the natives they are beaten, but still more on our guard against would-be-Authroities on Maori matters who without any experience and in utter ignorance of the true feeling and character, and motives of action of the natives are always bringing as from one scrape to another. The ''magic'' which keeps the Church Mussion quiet here in the north I can easily explain to you every man of them almost and all their relations are in hard cash to be quiet which they can hardly do notwithstanding all the sons are either Resident Magistrates, or interpreters or commissioners of something or another, and old Clarke is at their head. They are also getting a little afraid of the lay element who begin to talk of hanging them if they are not quiet time. There is however at this present moment a native scoundrel here sent from Auckland I suppose by the bishop he has made the circuit of the whole north and is telling the natives that the Waikato natives are destroying the soldiers as if they were and doing everything he can to set the a northern natives against us. The Government however have been informed of his doings, we shall see if he will be let to go on. I had a letter from our old friend Governor Browne by the same post that yours came by, amongst other he askes me how I came by the secret of being a prophet for some months ago I told him just what I thought we were coming to and every word I told him came true know the secret much experience and a little common-sence goes a long way in a simple matter for simple enough these things are to those who understand them. I think entirely with you that the Sword will not do the work that has to be done, and that after it has ceased its action such men as you and I (not to be modest) will be wanting to devise and carry out further measures for the good guidance of the natives, but then comes the question - will we act? for my part I have never had anything to do in carrying out any system of management for the natives that my own sence and concience does not approve of much less would I ever act subordinate to some Maori quack Doctor though I must say that if the natives were once subject to the law and reduced to the condition of peaceable subjects I would be the first to protect them from any unnecessary or vulgar tyranny. It is a most singular thing that the very thing you hint at the deportation of a lot of the obstreperous natives was proposed about two years ago by themselves, several chiefs secretly proposed to me to charter two large ships for them in which to go and talk or conquer some islands in the Pacific I let Mr. Bell know this in a letter I wrote him but as he never answered the letter though he desired me to write anything remarkable to him I suppose he thought I was I of course have never wnithen again, though we keep uivil to one another and so on. Something might have been made of that proposal at the time. The natives in the north are and that is all I can say, here in Hokianga there are a few hundred of my own particular friends are loyal by which I mean of course they are ready to fight for us at a moments notice, but will not submit to our laws at any price the majority are cool enough and there are some who make no secret of being rebels at heart but as yet being only a minority are afraid to commit any overt act. The great majority however of the northern natives could be brought to take arms for us I know how to do it and if the Govt. would let me would lead them to Waikato so as to have another shy at the Queens enemies, and my own, but I suppose the bad conduct of the ''friendly'' Auckland natives has set the Govt. and many headed multitude against the measure and from trusting too much they have fallen into the opposite error of trusting too little. I do hope we shall meet again some of these days I donot at present see any chance of going farther south than Auckland where I am going in a few days. Should I see or hear anything worth your notice I shall write again from that place to you. I was up all last night and am rather sleepy and stupid so you will excuse this dull epistle I hope that if we do not meet soon a letter per annum at least may pass between us to keep up the memory of ''Auld lang syne'' I am Yours very sincerely, F.E. Maning.