ARCHDEACON HADFIELD.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 295, 17 August 1860, Page 3

ARCHDEACON HADFIELD.

[The following is the letter alluded to in our brief observations on the debate on the Governor's speech. The letter is extracted from the Southern Cross.'] Sir—You will oblige me by giving insertion in your columns to a few observations I wish to make. ; When I lent Mr. Forsaith some lettersof William King's, for the purpose of enabling him to understand some questions connected with the war at Taranaki, I placed no restriction on that gentleman's use of them. But when extracts from these had been read in the house, at the request of a friend I readily assented to their being placed in the hands of the ministers. I had no wish to intrude them on the notice of the house, nor had I any reason for withholding them. At the time I received these letters I attached no importance to them, for reasons that will appear in the sequel. They have now become important; and an attentive perusal of them must convince any unprejudiced person that William King asserted a real claim to ownership on behalf of himself and others; that he was anxious to avoid any quarrel or disturbance; and that he believed the Governor was seeking some ground of quarrel with him—some pretext for hostilities. And this was I have no doubt, the impression produced in the House when extracts from these letters were read. Such a result, however, was not likely to afford universal satisfaction.

Before I proceed any further, I must notice an expression contained in one of the letters, which has been animadverted upon; I mean the assertion William King makes that I told him to retain possession of Waitara. The conversation to which he refers took place in the year 1839; before this Island was a British colony. It was occasioned by the peculiar position of Ngatiawa at the time, a battle in which they had lost thirty seven men, having been fought a lew weeks previous j and the Chiefs deeming

it advisable that the tribe should return to their former possessions. I am blamed for not having communicated these letters to the Governor. It is said that as the Governor requested me to inform him of anything connected with the native population which I might consider important, and-that as I promised to do so, these letters ought to have been forwarded to him. But the Governor's request and my promise occurred some time after the receipt of .William King's two first letters; His letter of December only reached mo some Weeks after its date. The Governorwas then at the South, and I expected to see him in Wellington. It was also generally understood that the Assembly was to meet there early in March. Still it may be asked why I did not comply with William King's request. My reason for not writing to the Governor on this subject was my : entire reliance on the assurance I received from him, when he did me the honor to visit me at Otaki, in May last year, that nothing would induce him to use force in order to obtain land about which there was a dispute, or yield to his Responsible advisers, if ever they should endeavour to press upon him such a step. I should certainly have thought I was offering an insult to His Excellency had I taken any step calculated to imply that I thought it possible he could commit an act of injustice. I never (or a moment entertained a suspicion that William King and his tribe would be i forcibly ejected, from land to which they had an undoubted title. What was the Governor's answer to the settlers at New Plymouth when they prayed him not to adopt any course inconsistent with the Queen's Sovereignty? It was an indignant repudiation of the implied possibility of his doing anything of the kind. Such an answer is exactly what I might have expected had I suggested my belief in the probability of his beginning an aggressive war—a war the ruinous and disastrous nature of which it is dreadful to contemplate, without even, as it appeared to me, a reasonable pretext.

I did what I consdered more likely to uphold the dignity of the Govenor and my confidence in him : I wrote to William King, that his forcible ejection from his land was absolutely impossible.

But when lam told that a serious sponsibility rests on me for not forwarding to the Govenor William King's letters, which are now considered so important, though they assert no claim to the land in dispute which is not more strongly asserted in his letter of April, addressed to the Governor himself, I must take leave to remark that communications of equal importance i are frequently placed in my hands. I will give but one instance. In the same month that! received Wra. King's letter, I received a communication from the principal chief of Ngatiraukawa, Nipia Taratoa, informing me that he had been positively told that it was the intention of the Government to seize him and make him prisoner; the reason assigned to him being his refusal to sell land; and requesting me to make inquiries of the Governor. He was alarmed, and talked of retreating into the interior. What would the Governor have thought if I had given credit to the report, and had written to him to make inquiries ? But perhaps after all I have committed an error. Whatever various opinions may be entertained as to the success of Sir George Grey's Government of the country, he certainly did govern; he held the reins himself. But have the reins—l allude to native affairs—been really held by the present Governor ? I assumed that they were. Perhaps I have made a mistake. Perhaps I have misled William King. But when I am told that a grave responsibility rests on me, I deny it; I repudiate the charge. The Government are responsible for the direction of public affairs. They have undertaken it. I have always supplied, to the best of my ability, any information that has been asked of me. I cannot be charged with having ever failed to reply by return of post to any letter addressed to me by any official person in this colony during the. twenty years of its ex'stence. But I will not lay myself open to the charge of "wishing to intrude into the Governor's Privy Chamber." Had the Government desired information from me, they very well knew they could have obtained it. Did they wish for it in the Waitara matter ? Has it not already been confessed that there was a foregone conclusion ? I now conclude with one further remark. There were persons who predicted from the; first the confusion that would arise in the Government of the country from the anomalous arrangement, or rather I should say, wretched compromise entered into between the Governor and the Responsible Ministry, the bitter fruit of which we are now reaping. These certainly were not " prophets wise after the event." Octavius Pladiield. Auckland, August 4th,. 1860.