ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE

Wellington Independent, Volume I, Issue 25, 25 June 1845, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE

Sir, —Will you oblige me by giving insertion to the enclosed letter, which I addressed to his Excellency Captain Fitzroy, on the 9th of April last, and to which 1 have not to this hour received a. reply.. I believe, most truly, that the enclosed letter was the cause of the persecution which I have suffered lately at the hands of Captain Fitzroy. I>emain,

Your obedient servant, Charles B. Waitford. Wellington, June 24, 1845. (Copy. Letter to Governor Fitzroy. Bay of Islands, April 9, 1845. Sir,—l have just received the Southern Cross newspaper, in which under the head Legislative Council, March 27. it is reported—He (the Governor) had received information that there was in the Post .Office a packet containing invoice ol guns, powder, and munitions of war, addressed to Mess. s. Waitford and Smith, of the Bay of Islands, coining by a vessel from Sydney there. It was said there were 100 barrels ot gunpowder, which was for the purpose of supplying traitors in their rebellion." Again— lhe Governor observed that the advice of the Attorney-General appeared very gbod, but the parties to whom the letter was addressed, were on then; way to America." In the reports of the Legislative Council of following dates I find no retraction of the above, made by your Excellency I have therefore to request that your Excellency will afford me the means of punishing my slanderers, by giving me the information, false as it is, which you said you had received, and also the name of its author. I have heard from Capt. M'Keever, U.S.S. St. Lows, that your Excellency produced to him an anonymous letter purporting to contain such information, but I do not wish to believe that from such a source, evidently a mere play upon your Excellency s credulity, you would wantonly defame the character of colonists If your Excellency has searched for the truth you must know that the "packet" referred to contained only newspapers and one letter, which. Captam Thompson, the writer thereof opened by my authority, and ofFered to your Secretary for your Excellency's perusal,-it being merely a letter of advice of his arrival in

Sydney with a minute of sules of cargo that he hiid made, but not one word about return cargo. Your declaration, that the parties to wnom the letter was •'addressed were oiv their way to America," is also without foundation. Mr. Smith was here on the 29th March, and I, one of the Finn, am still here, and responsible tor the transactions of the Firm. The declaration of the Governor m Council always bears weight with the public ;—it is then needless to point out the injury you have done us and I had hoped that your sense of justice would have induced an immediate reparation, (small indeed) by an equally public declaration, that you had been misled by most false statements. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your Excellency's obedient servant, Chalres B. Waitford.