E—No. 1 Sec. 11.

Perhaps a week or so later, a number of the principal Taranaki Chiefs and others of their people came to my station to hear and talk about passing events. They began with the question, how is it that the Governor has never yet come to see us if it is true what you say that we are his people and that he entertains thoughts of love and consideration for us? In reply, I pleaded His Excellency's reported ill health. As a rejoinder to this they told me that they felt very much in doubt as to whether that was indeed the true and real cause ; that, on the contrary, they were uneler a strong impression that the real cause was nothing else or less than a frowning jealousy on his (Governor's) part against the Maori King; and a feeling of dislike and antipathy to them on account of their having joined the King. Probably, they said, the Governor might also be afraid, lest on coming among them, he should be asked by them respecting his intention in reference to the Waitara lands, and to explain the meaning of the words in his recent niupepa (proclamation of March Bth) : they had thought that the Governor would also have proved their true friend ; that he would have undertaken for them, for protecting them in their right, at all events would have respect to the latter like his predecessors had done. AVhen they (the Natives) had found that he would not protect them, or at all events did not protect them, they had still continued to think that he at least felt for them, sympathised with them, and that he did not take nor would take any common part with those other pakeha, who for the sake of having a chance of getting possession of any bit or part of Maori land by it, cared not what evils, strifes and destruction there arose for the Maori from that cause; nay they even helped to fan it. But what (they continued) does now appear? no sooner does the Governor see that we have found a man from amoii,' ourselves, who can and will give us rest, quiet and security of and for our rights, life and peace, what lie (the Governor) has failed or never cared of giving us, then he is getting at once jealous and angry about it; and why? clearly because he is afraid lest he should not get any more Maori land. Now this matter has brought this secret clear into light, viz that he is all of the same mind with all the rest of the Pakeha, and cares as little about us and our weal or woe as they do, as long as in one way or another he has a prospect of getting possession of our Maori land, the land of the Maori, that has always been the grand object of the Governor and his pakeha. We have heard it all oft and long ago from the pakeha themselves, that the Maori in all countries must fall and disappear before the English pakeha and leave the latter to possess the land. This is the thing. We see it aimed at here as regarding our own race. They then went on to say that as long as they had fought among themselves and had killed each other off about the land, the Governor had left them without interfering and without showing that he cared much about having the land; but now that they had a prospect before them for such evils to cease, and for every man and tribe to come at length to posess his lot in peace and quietness with safety, he (the Governor) was all at once starting forward declaring that he would buy land from any individual; was he (the Governor) now himself going to become the instigator and promoter of strife, war, and bloodshed among them, or to pick occasion for some pretext to enable him to go himself to war with the Maori ? Had he not just now recently already ushered in something of this by the step he had taken respecting Waitara? AVould it stop there? Did not his niupepa (Proclamation, Bth March, 1859) speak about it as a thing intended to be generally adopted aud followed out anywhere ? What was it meant for but a mere blind, when he printed his word that he would not buy any disputed land, and at the same time at once added an intimation that he would not allow any one to interfere with another man's selling his land ? Were there among Maori any such individual rights and claims in existence, that could possibly pass uudisputed aud acknowledged as entitling the individual or party to sell or otherwise dispose of any part or parcel of land without the consent and sanction of the whole of the tribes concerned ? They would put it frankly to me whether I could or would say and affirm that the Governor was right in entertaining such thonghts and plans ; or that Te Teira and his small party had from 400 to 600 acres of land in one block all belonging to them exclusively, or that they had any laud at all (unless it was some other land obtained from the Pakeha) to dispose of at their own option and on their own account ?* and if I did, they should certainly know and say that I was guilty of a lie against my own better knowledge of what was really true, it being a matter which they knew I had long been fully and thoroughly acquainted with as well as with themselves and all their Maori ritengas, &c. But, no, it was clear aud evident that the Governor was seeking a cause for a quarrel, first to begin with AViremu Kingi, then to proceed with the Maori, in order to get hold and claim possession of their land. They knew that the Pakehas had always hated Wiremu Kingi, and why ? simply because he refused to give up his land to them. They had hated Katatore for the same reason. Through them the eieadly strife between Katatore and Rawiri had come to pass. Had not they countenanced and encouraged Rawiri to overreach Katatore in his rights until Katatore had felt urged to fight ? They (the Pakeha) had execrated and denounced Katatore for having killed Rawiri, which he had done in defence of his just rights and in open daylight, and they had upheld and cherished lhaia for and after his having assassinated Katatore in the dark; and why? because lhaia was an unprincipled aud unscrupulous seller of other men's property, which he had no right to do. And the Governor had adopted and spoken forth in his paper (Proclamation, March Bth) the same tone and language of the other Pakeha, condemning Katatore, even after his death; and on the other hand exonerating lhaia; and why ? because lhaia was the man for the Pakeha to serve their purpose by killing off all the principal and obnoxious Chiefs of the tribe. It was false to assert that lhaia had killed Katatore iu revenge of and to obtain utu for Rawiri's death. Had not Arama

* I need not repeat here what is my opinion on this point after having already written to you in a former letter, that I most fully, cordially, and conscientiously, concur and agree with you in all what you have stated in reference to tli.it point in your work on the Taranaki ejucsti-n, first part.

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DESPATCHES FROM GOVERNOR SIR G. GREY