A.—No. 1a

44

DESPATCHES FROM THE GOVERNOR OF NEW

and when the mere announcement of the Major-General's intention will certainly have a very prejudicial effect. As you are aware disturbances have recently broken out at Tauranga, on the confines of the Waikato District, and a force of Colonial Troops and Natives is now actively engaged in endeavouring to restore order. Hitherto none of the Waikato Tribes have joined the Tauranga insurgents, and I have had strong hopes that they will not do so ; but if they see that Her Majesty's Troops are to be removed from the position they occupy between Hangatiki, the stronghold of the Native King, and of those Natives which have merely ceased to carry on active operations, but have never given in their submission, and the insurgents now in arms at Tauranga—at the very moment when the presence of a force to preserve the peace would appear the most urgently needed, I cannot but feel the most serious apprehension that such a proceeding will be looked on as a direct encouragement to a renewal of the conflict. As the Major-General has communicated his intention to me, I feel bound to express my opinion as to what I conceive will probably be the effect at the present moment of the steps he proposes to take ; and I trust he'will relieve me of the difficult position in which his communication places me, by deferring any action in the matter until he has heard from His Excellency the Governor on the subject, and has afforded the Colonial Government an opportunity of making proper provision, which I have not the means of doing, for the maintenance of peace in the Waikato District, after the removal of Her Majesty's Troops. I have, &c, The Assistant Military Secretary, Auckland. F. Whitaker.

No. 22. Copy of a DESPATCH from Governor Sir George Grey, K.C.8., to the Right Hon. the Earl of Carnarvon. (No. 25.) My Lord, — Queenstown, Otago, 4th March, 1867. I beg to be permitted to advert to the two concluding paragraphs of your Despatch No. 56, of the 28th December last, which are as follows :— " Finally, I must observe, that while you thus appear to cling to the " expectations of continued assistance from this country, your own reports, or " rather the absence of reports from you, show how little you recognize any " continued responsibility to the Imperial Government for the conduct of the " War. While in your Despatch of the 15th of October you inform me that a " Trooper of the Colonial Forces had been kiUed by some hostile Natives, you " leave me to learn from the newspapers that, in the neighbourhood of Hawke's " Bay, a body of Natives who refused to give up their arms had been attacked by " the Colonial Forces in their Pa (which is said to have been unfortified) and " driven into the bush, twenty-three of them being killed and a like number " wounded; and that a Native village, on the West Coast, after being summoned " to surrender, was attacked by a Colonial Force, and escape being cut off, about " thirty or forty persons were killed. In the account before me this last " transaction is described as ' the most brilliant affair of this guerilla war;' " meantime your own Despatches would hardly lead me to suppose that any " recognized warfare was in progress. I need hardly observe that if at any time " it were alleged in this country that these affairs, described by the Colonial " Press as brilliant successes, were in fact unwarranted and merciless attacks on " unoffending persons, I have no authentic means of reply afforded me by your " Despatches." 2. Your Lordship will, I trust, pardon me for saying that I think it impossible for any man to read this language, addressed to himself, without feeling deeply hurt, and I feel the more so in my own case because I can assure you that your Lordship has written under an entire mistake, and that I have done nothing to merit the censure inflicted on me. 3. In the first place, I understand the Editor of the Paper to which your Lordship alludes to have used the terms " this is the most brilliant affair of this " guerilla war," the whole of the late war in New Zealand, and not as referring to any new warfare, the knowledge of which I had kept back from your Lordship. 4. In the next place, I would say with all respect, and only in my own defence, that I could not have sent to your Lordship any account of the affair at Napier by the same mail by which your Lordship received the news by the public prints to which you aUude, inasmuch as it did not reach me in time, and this fact