WELLINGTON PETITION.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 129, 24 August 1844, Page 97

WELLINGTON PETITION.

To the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled. The humble Petition of the undersigned inhabitants of the settlement of Wellington, in the colony of New Zealand,

Sheweth, That your petitioners respectfully beg to call you lordships' attention to the course adopted by his Excellency Captain Fitzßoy, the Governor of this colony, in reference to an event deeply affecting the interests of your petitioners, the reputation of her Majesty's Government, and the honour of the British name.

That in the month of June, 1843, the Police Magistrate and Judge of the County Court of Nelson proceeded, accompanied by several of the inhabitants of Nelson, to execute a warrant issued against some natives of the colony, and was, while in the performance of his duty, together with twenty-one other persons (amongst whom were many of the highest station and character in the settlement of Nelson), according to the belief of your petitioners, founded on evidence taken upon oath, hitherto unimpeached, and, as your petitioners are convinced, unimpeachable, inhumanly massacred. That, in the month of August last, a deputation appointed to proceed to Auckland on behalf of the inhabitants of Nelson, to lay before his Excellency the Officer then administering the Government the evidence relating to the said massacre, received a written assurance from his Excellency " that the case should not be prejudged, that impartial justice should be done, and that the penalties of the law should certainly overtake those whom its verdicts should prove guilty." That soon after the arrival of his Excellency Captain Fitzßoy, he made known his intention of inquiring into the circumstances of the said massacre, and that accordingly on the 12th of February of the present year, he proceeded, accompanied by a few officers of the Government, in H.M. frigate North Star, to a place called Waikanae, where he met some hundreds of the natives, and at their head the two chiefs, upon whom in endeavouring to execute the before mentioned warrant, twenty-two British subjects lost their lives. That his Excellency then addressed the natives, requesting to hear from them an account of the said massacre, and that one of^the two chiefs engaged therein made a statement to his Excellency, containing both gross perversions of the truth and many palpable falsehoods. That, after half an hour had elapsed, his Excellency, upon the simple denial of his guilt by one of the criminals, said that "having heard and reflected on the accounts of the natives as well as of the white men, he had decided that it was the misconduct of the English, which had brought on the fight, and hurried the natives into the crime of murdering unarmed men who had surrendered, and that he would therefore not avenge then* deaths." That the holding of this interview having been the only step taken by the Locg. Government towards redeeming the promise node by his Excellency the Officer administering the Government, to the deputation from Nelson, your petitioners respectfully submit that "the case was prejudged, impartial justice was not done," but that impunity to all parties concerned was publicly proclaimed. That" your petitioners beg humbly to remonstrate and protest against his Excellency Captain Fitzßoy having thus set at nought "both the forms and spirit of justice, and assumeS a power not possessed by the Crown itself, byabrogatjng at his pleasure the law and all its tribunals for inquiring into the commission of murder, &nd for inflicting punishment on murderers. That your petitioners advisedly and expressly confine their remonstrance against the conduct of his Excellency the Governor to this single subject of theWairau massacre; and your petitioners humbly pray that your lordships- wilfoe - pleased to take such steps as your lordshipsmay seam meet to prevent any similar itbroga- j tion of the law, and to establish the supremacy J of the constitution over the Local Government^ as well as over all the subjects of her Majesty* of whatever creed, colour, or degree throughc^ the colony. • . ' - "" And yoor petitioner! will ever pny, fee. U; : j