AGAINST-MR. C. W. RICHMOND.

23

F—No. 3

between the contending Native parties, under cover of which Ihaia's party had endeavoured to Mr, commit the act of gross treachery to which he refers. The Settlers knew nothing of this truce, or of the engagement to evacuate the Karaka Pa, and to them Mr. Parris appeared in the light of a meddler, whose officious interference had saved the stronger party from the effects of a stratagem deemed perfectly fair in Maori warfare, and resorted to in self-defence by the weaker party. A single individual (the deceased Editor of the " Taranaki Herald,") who was, I believe, aware of all the circumstances, appears to have condemned Mr. Parris, not, however, for revealing the ambush (which, it was admitted, he was under the circumstances in honor bound to do), but for taking'upon him to act the perilous part of mediator in the Native feud. The danger of such an interference is, indeed, obvious ; for if the ambush had succeeded, Mr. Parris would have been held responsible by the Natives for the blood of all who fell. They would certainly have believed that he had planned the whole thing. Mr. Parris seems to have mistaken the ground of censure, and to have supposed that the " Taranaki Herald" attacked him—for an act which honor and praJence alike dictated. Thus, upon examination, what has been presented to the House as Mr. Parris's charge against the Taranaki Settlers disappears : the " dreadful revelation" of " a combination to exterminate "William King off the land at Waitara," which has been received with such ." profound sensation" wherever it has been mentioned, and which has, I fear, but too well answered the purpose of its inventors, vanishes away. Secret thoughts and feelings, expressed by Mr. Parris in confidence, under the seal of privacy to his spiritual teacher, to his Father in God, have been wilfully disclosed —not to the Governor of the Colony—not to the official superiors of Mr. Parris, —but to a prominent political opponent of the Government —to a party leader, for a party purpose. As was to be expected, in such a case, the true meaning of the passionate and involved expressions of Mr, Parris' letter to the Bishop has been utterly perverted. Upon full enquiry, it plainly appears, First, that Mr. Parris never did state that any of the Settlers were planning or intending "dishonourable and treacherous treatmont of William King and his people." Secondly, that Mr. Parris was not justified in intimating that any Settler would have approved of such conduct, even on the part of King's Maori enemies. The treachery that Mr. Parris refused to countenance was that of Wiremu Te Korowhiti, of Whanganui, and his men, in which it will scarcely be thought that I had any share. The censure under which Mr, Parris was chafing, was that of the Taranaki Herald and of some of the Settlers who did not understand the facts of the case; censure with which, whether just or unjust, I had as little to do as I had with the ambush. 3. The next point to which I shall refer is the Minute of the proceedings of Executive Council of the Colony on 25th January, 1859 (1860, E3, page 11). The formal language of this Minute might be strained to support an inference, that the Members of the Council (i. c., the Ministry), had been the first to propose that the Troops should be used to protect the survey of the block. Such an inference is sufficiently rebutted by other published documents—'see particularly the Governor's Despatch to the Duke of Newcastle, dated 29th March, 1859 (1860,E- —3, page 3). On this subject, I further beg leave to refer to my speech in the House of Representatives on Mr, Fox's motion of " want of confidence," as reported in the New Zealander newspaper of 13th July, 1861. 4. I have next to notice the statements contained in the 27th, 28th, and 29th clauses of the petition of Mr. Augustus Brown Abraham. Dr. Featherston, in the speech referred to in the Resolution appointing this Committee, has professed to extract three statements from this petition. That I declared that I would take no steps to acquire the Waitara unless the New Zealand Company's purchasers would first surrender their rights to the sections originally selected by them M Waitara. That I gave a solemn pledge to Mr. Carrington, that if the Company's purchasers surrendered their right to the sections so selected, the Government would take steps to acquire the Waitara. That the solemn pledge referred to was embodied in a .written agreement with Mr. Carrington. Mr. Abraham's petition has been referred to the General Committee on Private Grievances, and Mr. Carrington and myself have been examined before that Committee. The Report of the \Jommittee establishes that the first and second of the foregoing statements are untrue. The 3rd statement is Dr. Featherston's own invention. Dr. Featherston pretends to draw from Mr. Abraham's petition, the inference that I was concerned in " negotiating a conspiracy" for depriving • the New Zealand Company's Land Claimants of their purchases of land in the Waitara. This minor conspiracy, it is suggested, was a preliminary to the greater one for the extermination of William King. The existence of the supposed plot against the land claimants is disproved by the Committee's Report on Mr. Abraham's petition, to which, and to the evidence taken before that Committee, I beg to refer. Having now disposed of every tangible ground of suspicion alleged against me before this Committee, I wish to turn for a moment, to the charge which I supposed to have been made, but which, I understand, is now disavowed by Dr. Featherston. I am not going at present to contest the truth of Dr. Featherston's statements, or the fidelity of the revised report of his speech which ho supplied to the New Zealander. I shall only say that the distinct accusation contained in the latter part of Dr. Featherston's speech as reported by the short-hand writer in the Southern Cross of the 18th June, 1861 (page 5), is precisely the accusation to which I conceived I was replying, when I rose in the House immediately Dr. Featherston had finished speaking. That is the charge of conspiracy which I supposed to have been publicly made, which I promised publicly to meet, and to which I now claim the right of giving a very brief reply.

C.W. Richmond 9th Aug, 1861.