17

A.—No. 1b

MADE BY COLONEL WEAEE, C.B.

and generous aid in many difficulties. I cannot give them up. I have defended them as well as myself: my defence of them I cannot withdraw, so long as the accusations, invested with the authority I have named, stand recorded in your office against them. 18. A confusion has crept into your Lordship's Despatch regarding the subjects on which, in my Minute and in my Despatch of the 30th of June, I deemed it to be due to my position, and to those serving under me, to afford or to decline to afford explanations. 19. Regarding every alleged specific fact of cruelty I gave all the explanation which it was in my power to afford. I only declined to notice imputations which it was only possible to meet by denial, and which it was impossible to disprove, and which were of such a nature that I did not think a regard to the position I held permitted me to notice them. 20. In reference to the opinion your Lordship has expressed that I have made use of improper language in the Despatch and Minute to which you refer me, I conceive that I should submit at once to your decision on this point, as you are the head of the department under which I serve. I cannot myself detect this improper language, but I may be a very wrong judge in my own case. Wherever therefore your Lordship may decide that any improper language may occur I beg it may be withdrawn, and I offer the fullest and most unreserved apology for any such language of which I may have made use. 21. Your Lordship thinks I have done that which will prevent the Government of the Colonies being carried on. The present state of this Colony, and of the two races which inhabit it, will, I am satisfied, convince you that such is not the case. The great body of the Native race are now loyal in the extreme. In cases of local disturbances they have, upon receiving my orders to that effect, raised considerable bodies of men, many of whom, without pay or any allowance for the destruction of their clothing, receiving nothing but their rations, have taken the field, and acting under the orders of the Queen's officers, without delay suppressed the disturbances which had arisen. 22. As your Lordship has justly reminded me I am the Queen's representative. It has been my misfortune that others should have wantonly accused me of having committed shocking crimes in that high office, and of having misused the powers with which I was entrusted, to give effect to my own wicked hatred of one class of the Queen's subjects, and of having put a pressure upon the army of a great and merciful nation, to compel them to give effect to my most wicked and cruel desires. 23. I know it is one of the incidents of high office, of the nature of those offices which I have held, in which I have constantly had to act between races and parties embittered against one another by civil war or other causes, to be liable to accusations of this or some analogous nature. 24. I was quite prepared to meet the common lot of men, whom accident or the wish of their countrymen forces into such difficult and unhappy positions, and I have endeavoured so to meet the misfortune which has overtaken me as might become the position I held. I had a duty to perform to the Queen and the high office with which Her Majesty had entrusted me, a duty to my own reputation, to the Secretary of State, to my Responsible Advisers, to my fellow subjects in this country. With such varied claims upon me, it was difficult to decide with exactitude the path which I ought to tread. I however decided to the best of my ability, and I have striven earnestly, and with perfect good temper, to come to the right decision. On a point on which my future reputation rests, I ought to and must decide for myself; and I believe that hereafter it will be admitted (if not now) that the course I have taken was becoming to my office, to the great powers with which the Queen and nation had entrusted me, and to my own long services, and I still trust that your Lordship will concur in this view of the subject. I have, &c, The Right Hon. the Earl of Carnarvon. G. GREY. 5