(Copy) C1846 To the Editor of the London Spectator. Sir, By a paper I lately received from Wellington I perceive the Colonists there have found it necessary to call a public Meeting to vindicate themselves from the calumnis Charges made against them by the aborigines protection Society. I fully sympathize with the Colonists and beg now in justice to myself and fellow Colonists and to the New Zealand Company from whose Colonisation the Natives have derived many benefits, in the most unhesitating and unqualified manner to deny the truth of these charges against the colonists on the contrary to assert that if any injuries have been inflicted or outrages committed this has not been done by the unprotected defenceless Settlers but by the one sided Government protected Natives. That such a respectable body as the Abo. protection Society should have made those charges in ignorance is contradictory to common sense, that they should have done it rashly in the spirit of a well but misled philantrophy would be implying moral culpability and cannot therefore for a single moment be thought of. The only inference then is that they have made them on the evidence of some good and trust worthy authority. If so then surely in justice to their calumniated Countrymen they will be too willing to make such evidence and authority immediately public so that it may be brought to the Stern seat of facts the natives and their protectors being witnesses and if this be done I doubt not it would be amply refuted and abandant proofs given that if protection is required it is on behalf of the helpless Settlers - But if a protectorable for the natives be necessary it must not be limited to mere protection of their land rights, It must be on intellectual and moral protection. It must protect the Natives from themselves, from their ignorance, their absurd caprises, their savage passions and from that senseless selfish cupidity which seems of late years to have been fostered among them by parties from whom better things might have been expected. The grounds on which I have made the foregoing assertions are very simple I have been resident on the New Zealand Cos. Settlements for the period of 5 years connected in no way whatever pecuniarly or otherwise with Government, New Zealand Company, or Missionary bodies, except the Church of Scotland. In the exercise of my duties as a Clergyman, I have met with all classes and denominations, I have watched anxiously the conduct of thousands of Europeans and Natives and the result is that I have never seen or known by hearsay of a single injury being committed by a Settler upon a Native - though from personal experience I am aware of many on the reverse - As to persecution it seems to be but the day dream of a warm imagination. I at least have never known of such in existance, on the other hand I must bear most distinct evidence to the cautius forbearance of the Settlers towards the Natives and that too in circumstances of no small provocation. The inserting of these in your paper will much oblige John Macfarlane