purposly kept back the Blue Book in order to meet the House next week with Bowen's last dispatches making everything pleasant. Granville said a day or two ago they had received four letters from Bowen, all of them quite satisfactory as to the state of the Colony: and so it seems as if the Fates were against us and he had luck all on his side. Grey (who is here constantly) was storming about Bowen's dispatches; but I reminded him that he had more than any one urged that the Governor's official statements were to be taken and believed and not the letters of other persons, and so he must expect his own doctrine to be quoted against him everywhere by the Colonial office in justification of their faith in Bowen's couleur de rose accounts. I wish to Heaven you had all been firm about not going on with these cursed expeditions after Kooti. They have done for the Defence Votes, and have yielded no result. You might for the same money have made all your tracks to Taupo and Murimutu and across from Foxton towards Napier. If in addition to this expedition cost it is true that Vogel has been endangering us by coquetting with Auckland for the next meeting of the Assembly, our chance is a poor one indeed. Farnall goes out next month, but as Bunny positively told me neither Featherston nor I should have pairs, it is clear we shan't have a vote to spare. I am delighted to hear you were off to Auckland to stamp out the agitation about the meeting of the Assembly and the removal of the seat of Government If I read your letters and Gisborne's rightly I think we are quite on the main questions. As regards the troops going, I look upon that as done for ever; the sooner we wash our hands of their memory the better; and you may be absolutely sure we shall never see the British grenadier in New Zealand again. I told you last mail that I had done with pining after them, and wanted to turn our hands at