Taranaki October 14th. 1870. Dear Sir, A portion of the substance of this communication was submitted to you in Wellington, but as it is a much fuller statement than the first, of the circumstances under which I venture to think that I have just claim to some Public Employment, I trust you will not deem yourself ''pestered'' by my asking you to do me the favour of glancing at it. One of the early New Plymouth settlers visited England some 20 years ago with introductions from Colonel Wakefield and Dillon Bell to the Directors of the, then, New Zealand Company, I was favourably received by them, and solicited to give a course of provincial Lectures in New Zealand, for which I had their official thanks. A little wotk on New Plymouth, published on my arrival in England, having been well received, the ''cacothes scribendi'' was inflamed; and having ever seen that New Zealand's great, want was - More People, and thinking that a plain, practical work on the young Colony, as a Home-planting Emigration Field, might aid a little in such want, I returned to New Zealand, and visited all the Provinces, in order to gather that further information, which might the better qualify me for writing such Work. On reaching England again in 1857, its first guinea edition appeared, and in 1861, its (15/-) second. The wide circulation of these Works, and of the New Zealand Handbook, now in its 12th. large edition, each and all inviting readers to apply to the Writer for any additional advice or information needed, together with further Lecturing and proseltsing, have, in the last 20 years, brought me into friendly communication with hundreds of families of the Capitalist and small capitalist order of Emigrants; and it is well known to the great Passenger Lines, and to such men as Sir Charles Clifford, and others at Home interested in our young Colony. that I have long exercised marked influence in the Mother Country in the promotion and extension of emigration to New Zealand. And I can truly say that while I have deterred many of the '''' from emigrating, to the injury both of themselves and the Colony, great numbers of the have been New Zealand colonists, mainly or partly, by me - though as regards our Island, these numbers might, I think, have been raised even tenfold, had she not been so long, intermittingly, been torn and blasted ''by barbarian massacre and war. Such long continued, if humble efforts in the good cause of New Zealand colonization, was not wholly unpaid. But their pecuniary return was so small that had I not been perhaps somewhat an enthusiast in the work of ''peopling New Zealand'', and had I not, after seeing many new countries, been possessed by the convistion that New Zealand was the finest ''Home-planting'' emigration field in the world, and that it was good and meritorious work to make her as such to the millions of our countrymen who toil and moil through life at home, I, years ago, should have withdrawn from the cause of her colonization, and devoted myself to some more profitable, but not more honourable, pursuit. Quite apart, too, from her ''Immagrationary'' Interests in the Mother Country, I, on five occasions, have sought to serve New Zealand, there, by gratituously circulating, in quarters, various little publications, proclaiming the naked about New Zealand wars, the errors of the Home Government therein and exposing those vile calumnies often against the colonists, both in the Peers and Commons. (debates on New Zealand), but calumnies for the most part utterly unnoticed by any official representative of New Zealand in England. Certainly, for one of those publications I got the ''many thanks'' of Mr. Gladstone, and the ''Official thanks'' of New Plymouth's Provincial Council; but their circulation cost me upwards of £100 - more to me than £1000 to many of my fellow colonists, who have the wisdon to stick to plough and fleece, and to leave to the profitless, and ever unrecognised, labours of engaging in New Zealand's cause, in England. Had I in the Colony for the last 20 years, and, as many of my contemporaries have done, gone into Public Life, anything which I might have done in advancement of our young country's interests. would have been publicly to all my fellow colonists; but you will, I think, admit that her great ''Immigrationary Interests'' in the Mother Country are as vital to her as any within her shores; and in promotion of , I have long laboured with energy, and, as I think I can prove, with . All through this long course of efforts in New Zealand's cause, at home, my inspiriting hope has been that of eventually returning with the means of creating a little estate whereon to end my days. But a gross wrong lately done me in a Will, at last shattered this idol, and has now caused my return with views very different from those so long cherished, and in a position very different to that counted on. Under such reverse of fortune, it occurred to me that as in the growth and progress of young countries such as ours, various fresh Public Officers are, from time to time, necessarily called for and created. My 20 years' efforts in making New Zealand to the migrant millions of the Mother Country, and in directing to her, Immigrant Capital and Labour, might, by any Ministry in power, he held as giving me just claim to one - a view strengthened by the following, utterly unsolicited, expressions of opinion in my favour by Sir George Grey and Sir C. Clifford, conveyed in communications lately received from them in England. The former saye:- '''' The latter says:- In the interview to which Mr. Fox invited me at Wellington, he frankly admitted that the Colony was under obligations to me, and gave me to understand that my case should receive consideration; while the impression left on me by our conversation on the day I dined with you, is that were equally well-disposed towards me. Almost a similar communication has been addressed to mr. Fox, Mr. Vogel and Mr. Gisborne, and a copy of it laid before His Excellency; and I cannot but trust that the related circumstances under which I now seek some ''Public Employment'' will be deemed by you and your Honourable colleagues, as giving me just claims thereto. Yours Respectfully (Signed) Charles Flinders Hursthouse. To:- The Hon.Donald McLean M.H.R. ''Defence and Native Minister'' Wellington.