E.—No. 3. SECTION I.

Zealand Company from the Aboriginal Natives, and tliat to this purchase the assent was obtained not only of those few Natives then resident on the spot, bui likewise of owners who had fled to distant parts. That Mr. Spain, the Commissioner appointed by Your Majesty to preside over the New Zealand Land Claims Court, pronounced that the 60,000 acres of country forming the settlement of New Plymouth was fairly purchased by the New Zealand Company. That the land so purchased was offered for selection, and a considerable portion taken up and cultivated by Settlers. That in the year 1844 Governor Fitzroy, K.N., reversed the Commissioner's award, and gave back the whole of this land to the Natives, repurchasing at the same time a small block of 3,500 acres, to ■which the Settlers were confined for upwards of three year3. That since Governor Fitzroy's Act, few purchases have been effected, the whole in twenty years amounting to no more than 70,000 acres, and excluding the most valuable portion of the original purchase. That in or about the year 1854 a league was formed amongst the Natives for the purpose of prohibiting under pain of death the sale to Your Majesty of any more land within certain defined limits, which include the remaining lands of the Province, comprising upwards of two millions of acres. The main and avowed object of this league was to prevent the spread of the European population, which already equalled in numbers the Native population of the Province. In accordance with this determination of the league, Kawiri Waiana, a Magistrate, and several followers were shot down whilst pointing out the boundaries of a block of laud they had offered to the Government. That feuds, in which many lives were lost, ensued on the death of the assessor Kawiri, and that these feuds were carried on within the limits of the Settlement, without any attempt on the part of the Authorities to bring the offenders to justice, the Natives being in a state of complete anarchy. That in the year 1856 several tribes combined to form a kingdom, and shortly after elected a King from amongst themselves. That in March 1859 a small block of land on the Kiver Waitara was publicly offered for sale to Colonel Gore Browne, C.B., Governor of New Zealand, and that the offer was accepted by His Excellency subject to the condition that the seller's claim to ownership was undisputed. That on the occasion referred to, Wiremu Kingi, a chief of the Ngatiawa tribe, without claiming any proprietary right or disputing the seller's title, forbade the sale, declaring that he would never allow the land to be sold. That the investigation into the title to the land continued for the space of nine months, that Wiremu Kingi continued to forbid the sale, though admitting the title of Teira and the other sellers to the land, and that ultimately the purchase was effected. That in the first instance a portion of the Ngatiawa headed by Wiremu Kingi, and afterwards other tribes, resisted the occupation of the purchased land by force ot arms, some of them fighting with the avowed object of exterminating the white population of Taranaki. That the war, which resulted from the purchase at the Waitara was clearly and avowedly a resistance against the supreme authority of Your Majesty, and that in the opinion of your Memorialists the condition of the Native race was at that time such that a struggle must have occurred whenever any attempt was made to maintain that authority in opposition to the will of the section of the Natives by whom it was not acknowledged. That the Settlers of Taranaki have not shrunk from the dangers and hardships of that war, but that for nearly two years almost all the able-bodied male population were under arms, and on actual service. That the Settlers have suffered the ordinary calamities of war, some have been killed in the field, and many have died from disease brought on by the war—the mortality suddenly increasing to many times its usual average —and that some have been barbarously murdered by the Natives in cold blood. That your Memorialists have sustained heavy losses of property, their farms being laid waste, their houses burned, and their flocks and herds killed, or driven ofl' by the rebel Natives. That not only were the Settlers not allowed to defend their property, but were positively forbidden to do so by the Military Authorities, and that in some instances they were compelled to be passive spectators whilst their houses were being burnt and their flocks and herds driven off. That their losses were aggravated by a Military Proclamation forbidding the export of articles of food, whereby their principal trade was stopped, and thus valuable property fell into the hands of the rebels, which might otherwise have been placed beyond the reach of danger. That the industry of the settlement has been paralysed, the value of the exports of the past year having fallen ofl' to less than one sixth of that of the year which preceded the war, whilst the value of the imports is largely increased by the necessity that exists for importing the immediate necessaries of life, which in ordinary times were produced in excess of the consumption. That the liberal sum voted by the Colonial Legislature as compensation, will very inadequately reimburse the settlers for the losses sustained through their long continued absence from their farms. That your Memorialists have waited patiently, in the hope that the authority of Your Majesty would be asserted, and they have been encouraged to entertain this hope by a Despatch of Your Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies to His Excellency Sir George Grey, dated 22nd September, 1861, in which great stress is laid on the necessity of maintaining Your Majesty's supremacy. At' the end of three years, however, your Memorialists see no reasonable prospect of the immediate fulfilment of those hopes. That the wrongs of your Memorialists are not being yet redressed, the plunder still remaining in the hands of the Natives, and no serious efforts having been made to bring the murderers to justice. That the so-called Maori King although possessing little real power to enforce law and maintain order, affects to exercise the functions of an independent monarch, and that in his name soldiers

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TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE.