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New Zealand Herald and Auckland Gazette, Volume I, Issue 55, 26 February 1842, Page 2

We have much pleasure in publishing the following letter addressed to G. B. Earp, Esq., M. C., by the Chairman of a public meeting, held at Wood’s Hotel; the most numerous and respectable which we have ever attended in this colony. We are truly glad to see that the people are becoming alive to their own public rights and interests, and appreciate, as they have done, in this manner, the manly and independent conduct of their valuable representative, Mr. Earp. Editor. Sir, —As Chairman of a Public Meeting held this day at Wood’s Hotel, 1 have been requested by the Proprietors of Land in New Zealand, and others resident in Autkiand, to convey to you the expression of their highest appioval of vour conduct as a Member of the Legislative Council of this Colony, and of their firm and full conviction that no person could have discharged the important duties of a Legislator with a more honorable and upright independence, or a moie conscientious determination to piomote the general good of this Colony than you have done. Being fully persuaded of the truth of this, they cannot conceal their indignation at the proceedings in Council on Monday last, when the Governor refused to you a hearing in reference to a report that certain indtvi :uals had requested His Excellency to remove you from the Council, the truth of which report His Excellency did not deny, though a pr'cce-

dent had been established in the case of Mr. Clendon, one he Members of Council. Notwithstanding this conduct on the part of His cy, they most earnestly request that you will not, at the present important period, deprive the Colony of your most yaluable services ; more especially when the consideration of the “Land Claims Bill,” a measure of vital importance to the Colony, is now before the Council. They would therefore beg leave to request that you will resume your seat in the Council, as they have reason to fear from the tyrannical measures of the Government, that nothing less than the ruin ol the whole Colony must ensue. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your most Obedient and Humble Servant, CHARLES ABERCROMBIE, Chairman. To George Butler Earp Esq.. M. C. &c. &c. Ike. Auckland, 23id Feb., 1842. To the Editor of the New Zealand Herald and Auckland Gazette. Dear Sir, — Will you be kind enough to insert in your Paper, the following contradiction of an, assertion in the Minutes of the Legislative Council of to-day, that I admitted myself to be the author of the first part ofan article in your Paper upon the understanding, that Mr. Clendon would take no proceedings in law against me. Both you and the numeious assembly present can bear witness that I made an admission totally at variance with this assertion in the minutes ; my admission was on the condition that an action of which Mr. Clendon had given notice to the printer and publisher of your paper, should be withdrawn, and that no advantage should he taken of any admission of mine in any law proceedings. The Government however obstinately adhered to the minutes, declaring that they had been decided by the Council; as though tiie Council had any thing to do with deciding the Minutes they being merely a recoid kept by the Clerk of Councils; their ooject in refusing the Minutes to beset right, was no doubt lo be enabled to pass a vote of censure upon me from the statement in the Minutes . but as I have a strong idea that a vote of censu:e upon me would be regarded by the whole mass of the inhabitants, whose good opinion is worth having, as being lire highest compliment they could pay me, I shall submit very resignedly lo their tkunder. The absurdity of calling a Member of Council to account for writing in a Newspaper, is certainly amusing, and I am only sorry that Mr. Clendon should have been so tender about Newspapers; it must have been evident, that as a private man, the article in question was never lor one moment intended to apply to him. 1 am, Dear Sir, Yours truly, G. B. EARP.