SHORTLAND'S PROCLAMATION.

New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator, Volume IV, Issue 280, 13 September 1843, Page 2

SHORTLAND'S PROCLAMATION.

Our worthy Acting-Governor's Proclamation is working famously. The ill-used Maories behave just as we suppose Shortland desired, and Englishmen and their families who have come to this distant land for a settling place, are put upon and shamefully treated by the half-cannibal and still brutally savage Aborigines of New Zealand. We have had already to record in our paper the aggressions on the Hutt, and also to Messrs. Kebble on the Manawatu, but the evil instead of decreasing is spreading far and wide. A man named Simpson and his wife have just arrived from the Manawatu ; the quiet Natives of that place having taken a fancy to a variety of articles belonging to him, and robbed (or in Maori phraseology rushed) his house stripping it of whatever they chose. This is another settler, and a useful one, who is obliged to fall back on the town, and from all the evidence we can collect, it is more than probable that the whole white population I scattered along the coast will have to come into Port Nicholson, for the Natives are commencing one general system of rushing f It may be asked how long will such a state of things be allowed ? So long as the present land-sharking, inhuman, and. stupidly ignorant officials are in power at Auckland, and till they are kicked into merited obscurity, we shall see the fruits of our long toil wrested from us, and ourselves left almost at the mercy of powerful, vindictive, anl ferocious tribes. Had white men committed such deeds Jon the Natives how different would be the , case ! We should then see the whole family •of Protectors in arras, and breathing vengeaiwe; the majesty of the law would be proclaimed, and the aggressor punished ; but the Natives of New Zealand, like the privileged orders at home can do no injury, at least to the ssttbments in Cook's Straits, for if we were ruined the inhabitants might proceed to Crimp Town at the north, and put money into the pockets of Government officials by purchasing "valuable allotments of land," und then we should not have to cry out for protection ! No ! for if the Maories carried on there as they do here, they would soon be taught the difference between robbing and illusing settlers whom the Government wish to ruin, and doing the same at a place which officials are mad enough to suppose they can still bolster up.

The followers of Rauparaha and Rangihaeata, under their superintendence, are building a very extensive Pah at Porirua, on the cleared land, near Toms's place. These gentry, believing we intend to do nothing concerning the Massacre, become greater braggarts every day, and talk of the white men with the most contemptuous indifference. They thought no little of themselves prior to the lamentable affair at Wairau, but since then our moral and physical superiority is derided, and they now publicly slate they " can cut us up like cabbage." If ever the two races come again in contact with each other, we fancy the Maories will not have to boast of such a termination as that on the. shores of the Middle Island.

We have received information from a party arrived from Poverty Bay, of the loss of the schooner Governor Hobson, on her return voyage from thence, no detailed account has yet come to hand, but it appears that in endeavouring to weather the point of the Bay, a most awful gale suddenly came on, and a heavy sea striking her, the vessel disappeared and all hands consisting of the captain, four sailors, and two maories perished, the bodies were washed oh shore and buried. The cargo censisted of oil, pork, and maize.

The Theatre opened last evening, under a management which cannot fail to be attractive. The building has been raised* with great expedition, the foundation stone :j: j having been laid so lately as the 29th of July. The comforts of the visitors have been consulted in the internal arrangements, and the _ Theatre is lighted with oil-gas, very ingeniously prepared on the premises. To the play-going public, Port Nicholson now presents all the attractions to bY found at Hobart Town^and

Sydney. The pieces which were represented last evening, were a new melodrame called the " Rover of the Seas " and " Crossing the Line," but the lateness of the hour at which the performance terminated precludes us giving a critique ef the performance in to day's paper, but a full report will appear in the Gazette on Saturday.