CORRESPONDENCE. Letter IV.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume VI, Issue 436, 2 September 1851, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE. Letter IV.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SOUTHERN CROSS." "Wild, indeed, always kept as much truth at possibie in everything; and this, he said, was turning the cannon of the enemy upon tbemarlvet." Hittory of Jonathan Wild, the Great. Fulcra Larerna, Da mihi fallere, da sancto jaitoque rideri, Noctem peccatii, et fraudibus objice nubem. flor. Epist. 11 Let timber be pulled down- from hia house, and, being tet up, let him be hanged thereon." Ezra, eh. ti, v. 11.

Sir, — In my last I examined the despatch through means of which Governor Grey attempted to escape from having unjustly charged Mr. Brown with having garbled an official document. Even had that charge been founded on fact, he, at all events, ought not to have ventured to cast the stone ; for lam actually about to prove the same charge against himself which he failed in substantiating against another man. I have been unable to find in the Blue Book the letter in which this charge against Governor Grey was conveyed to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, or the covering despatch, if any such were written j but, , as that letter ought to 'have found insertion, the present communication v is not really a digression from the limits which I had prescribed to myself. It will be remembered that Mr. Fitzgerald was appointed Commissioner of Land Claims by Governor Fitzroy; that disagreements about the recommendations for' Crown grants ensued, which finally resulted in Mr. Fitzgerald's bringing a series of charges against the Governor, and in his' consequent dismissal from office.- Mr. Fitzgerald) thinking

himself aggrieved, appealed to the Colonial Office. Meanwhile, Governor Fitzroy was recalled, and was succeeded by Governor Grey. In due time, Mr. Gladstone's answer to the appeal arrived, the purport of which, embodied in a letter from the Colonial Secretary for New Zealand, was communicated to Mr. Fitzgerald. There is no need to trouble you with the whole letter ; the essential portion of it was to this effect : — that Governor Grey had been directed, by the Secretary of State, to inform Mr. Fitzgerald that he had received two letters, which had been directed to Lord Stanley through the late Government, which, together with various other documents transmitted, related to a series of charges brought by Mr. Fitzgerald against his Excellency. Mr. Fitzgerald was further informed that Mr. Gladstone was of opinion that the late Governor had " acted properly in opposing to these unproved accusations against his honour and integrity the absolute and indignant contradiction which he gave to them j and that, although Captain Fifczroy was no longer amenable to the censure of her Majesty's Government, yet that if, for the. defence of his own character, that officer had thought it necessary to demand an enquiry into those charges, Mr. Gladstone would have done all in his power to meet that demand ; but that, as Captain Fitzroy apparently considered that his character could sustain no prejudice from these imputations, Mr. Gladstone assumed and acquiesced in the propriety of Captain Fitzroy's judgment on that question." Being well acquainted with Mr. Fitzgerald — although by no means an opposer of Captain Fitzroy's Government, — I was invited to consult upon the letter. Now r I have- been always a believer in presentiments, — so strongly as occasionally even to risk acting upon them. I was not at that time so conversant with the tortuous policy of Governor Grey as at present ; but a fancy — which 1 to I»he present hour I cannot account for — came over my mind, that it might be as well to ask for an actual copy of the despatch, which was supposed to be embodied in JDr. Sinclair's communication. The " request was made, accordingly, in a carefully worded letter, avoiding all appearance of suspicion, bnt insisting so strongly as to make it clear that if refused in Auckland, a copy would be applied for in Downing Street. . . There was nothing for it but to yield, and the required document was gracefully supplied. You may judge of our astonishment when we found in it the true reason of Mr. Gladstone's refusal to entertain Mr. Fitzgerald's claim : that it was because "he teas of opinion that Captain Fitzroy adopted the only course properly open to him, by publishing, in the Gazette of the Colony, the 'letter addressed to him by Mr. Fitzgerald." This passage was deliberately suppressed, for the reason that no such publication had ever been made at all. The complainant, instead of being definitively cast, was placed in a better position than before; the case was re-opened, for Mr. Gladstone's ground for closing it was cut away. Never was there a more sudden revolution of affairs. I have heard and known much of the alleged suppression of a letter, connected with a recent cburt-martial held in Auckland: without committing myself to any opinion upon that over-vexed question, it will suffice to observe that here, at all events, is a suppression many times more flagrant. For fear of misapprehension, I ought to state that the charges had in fact been ordered to be published in the Government Gazette, but that the publication was countermanded. I have seen the order to Mr. Fulton, the printer, in Captain Fitzroy's handwriting, bidding him take twenty copies of the letter containing them, as a small pamphlet, and send them all to him; to [ take no other copies, but break up the type. How Mr. Gladstone was led into the mistake I do not know, nor do I care to know : Governor Grey's garbling of an official despatch is all that concerns me now. The next question for Mr. Fitzgerald was how to extract an acknowledgment from Sir George that he was himself the suppressor of the passage in question. For although we were well aware that he was, in point of fact, his own Colonial Secretary, still theletter bore the signature of Dr. Sinclair, who thus became scape-goat to the sins of his superior. A second letter was therefore written, warmly thanking Governor Grey for his prompt compliance with the request for a copy of Mr. Gladstone's despatch, and by a pardonable ruse, accusing Dr. Sinclair pf the deed. It was as follows : — Sir, — You will favour me by laying before His Excellency the Governor this letter, expressing my j thinks for hit kind and prompt compliance with my request for a copy of that despatch, the purport of which wai supposed to be forwarded to me in your letter of the 9th instant. His Excellency .will perceive that the request pas , neither trifliDg nor vexatious, when he learns that qna portion of the despatch, of the greatest importance to my case — upon which Mr Gladstone, appears mainly to hare founded his opinion of Captain Fitzroy's innocence — was psised over without notice in jour letter to me : namely, this, that Mr. Gladstone was "of opinion that Captain Fitzroy adopted fee only conne properly open to him, by publishing in the Gazette of the colony, the letter addressed to him by Captain Fitzroy/' YoUj Sir, in passing over that part of the despatch, must tiave forgotten that the letter in question never was published in the Gazette: and that there was a misrepretentation or fact to the Secretary of State, distinct and unequivocal. I offer no commentary upon the statement, for it needs none ; neither will I now enlarge upon the i ilk I ran of being left in ignorance, or npon the' great icrvico of the discovery to me » but content

mygelf with again thanking hi* Excellency most sincerely for having enabled me to make it. I bare the honor, .&c, R. A. FITZGBKAXD. To the Hon. the Colonial Secretary. Once again there was nothing for it but to confess. He could do no less, when written to in such terms, than cast his broad mantle over the subordinate,, and relieve him from the unmerited imputation. Mr. Fitzgerald received an answer, informing him that the letter of October 9 was, written by the Governor's direction, and that the omission complained of appeared to the Governor at the time, and still appeared to him to have been "wiiolly unimportant." Now, Sir, it will be of no use his answering that I cannot possibly be a judge of what appeared to him ; I denounce the foregoing assertion as a plain untruth. I may safely do so, for no one, who has the power of looking any matter straight in the face, can hesitate for an instant to characterize that excuse alike with me. The very gist and substance of a. despatch is expunged — the remainder being purely corollary — and the clear-headed Governor Grey coolly states that he "considers the omission as " wholly unimportant !'.' , His ideas of relative importance are incomprehensible to -ordinary intellects. The only way to arrive at them would be by common-placing those passages of his despatches in which the word occurs, after the fashion of the old classical commentators, and observing how they bear upon each other. Suffer me to try my hand by collating a paragraph from another despatch (Blue Book, July, 1848, p. 121), concerning the publication of the famous letter to the Bishop. A copy of tbit letter wai again given up to the editor of the urns newspaper, in a manner which remain! unexplained. It was published at a true copy, although a sentence which I regarded as important was omitted. And it was made the medium of a moit violent and unfair attack upon the Bishop and myself. The following is the sentence alluded. to, the italicised words constituting the omission :—: — I have ventured to trouble your Lordihip with the copy of a letter I received this afternoon from Archdeacon Williams, not that I with to impose upon your Lordship the trouble of even reading this letter, if you do not deiire it, tnupA ten ofexpret- • ting any opinion upon it; but I simply wish that, if, after having read what I am about to say, you may think it necesiary to see how the Government at present stands with the missionary land claimants, the means of obtaining the requisite knowledge should be at your disposal. "What a curious contrast between the .two omissions ! and that we should be so obtuse as not t to perceive the, importance of the latter one. Does he take us all for fools? or does he put his trust in the 16,000 miles from., home, and in the year_ that must elapse before his misrepresentations can come to light ? There is something about him that I could never thoroughly comprehend. Can it be that there is a certain natural obliquity about the frame of his mind, which disenables him to perceive his own deviations from the straight-forVard course ? Like the crab, thatisphysically incapacitated from any but i(fsideward progress, he may be so organized as to lack the power of acting with rectitude. It is not even impossible but that, when accused of untruth, he may really believe himself -an injured man. Metoikos.