A.—No. 1b

consequences to which it led. A township is now fast growing up at the mouth of the River Waitara. 13. I inspected the outposts held by the Local Militia for the protection of the settlements round Taranaki, especially that on the hill of Pukerangiora (eleven miles from New Plymouth), AA'here stood the pa of Te Arei, besieged by General Pratt. This important frontier post is now garrisoned by a party of Military Settlers, among whom I found a Greek gentleman of good birth and education from Patras in the Peloponnesus, named Paclopoulos, who, with a few others of his countrymen, fought bravely in the Colonial forces. He told me that a love of Avarlike adventure had brought them to NeAV Zealand; and observed that as the Byzantine Emperors once employed Englishmen in their Varangian Guard to protect the frontier of the Greek Empire, so it seemed the English Government noAV employed Greeks to protect the frontier of the British Empire. He is an industrious farmer, and has already planted a small vineyard near the redoubt. It Avas certainly interesting to find a Greek in such a place, especially as Pukerangiora is the Suli of Maori history. About 1830, ten years before the commencement of English colonization, the NgatiaAva clan had entrenched themselves on this hill when attacked by the Waikatos under Potatou Te Whero Whero, aftenvards elected (in 1857) to be the first King of the Maoris. At the final assault, many hundreds of the Ngatiawas, rather than fall into the hands of their hereditary foemen, threw themselves headlong, with their wives and children, from the top of the lofty cliff overhanging the River Waitara. It will be remembered that a similar incident took place on the capture of Suli by Ali Pacha. The gorge of the Waitara beloAV Pukerangiora reminded me in its general features of the gorge of the Acheron below the Rock of Suli. 14. Erom Taranaki I proceeded by sea to the harbour of Whaingaroa, where I visited the small township of Raglan, Avhich, when peace shall have been finally established, Avill probably become a place of importance, and one of the chief ports on the West Coast. I enclose a copy of the Address presented to me by the settlers, and of my reply to it. They do not exceed at present two hundred (200) in number, and dAvell principally round a redoubt, into Avhich they would retire in the event of an attack. The few Maoris in the immediate neighbourhood of the settlement are friendly, but Raglan is distant in a straight line only twenty miles from the aukati or " pale" of the Maori King. 15. Erom Whaingaroa I proceeded to Auckland by the Manukau Harbour. In conclusion, I would remark that my observations on the West Coast, as in all other parts of New Zealand, confirm the views on the general condition, prospects, and requirements of this Colony Avhich have been submitted at length in my previous Despatches, and especially in my Reports of 7th December, 1868, and 7th January, 1869. I have, &c, The Right Hon. Earl Granville, K.G. G. E. BOWEN.

No. 20. Copy of a DESPATCH from Governor Sir G. E. Bowen, G.C.M.G., to the Right Hon. Earl Granville, K.G. (jsjo. 135.) Government House, Auckland, My Lord, — New Zealand, 22nd October, 1869. I have the honor to report that since the arrival here of the last English mail (that Avhich left London in August), my attention has been repeatedly solicited to certain errors respecting matters of fact in the reports published in the English newspapers of the able speech on the affairs of New Zealand, delivered in the House of Commons on the 22nd July ultimo by the present Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Right Honorable William Monsell. I have been strongly urged, in particular, to correct the errors contained in the following paragraph of the report, as given in the Mail (the bi-weekly reprint of the London Times), of the 23rd July ultimo :— " Allusion has been made to the Natives Avho had escaped from the Chatham " Island. Now he believed —though his information was not official—that these

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AND THE GOVERNOR OE NEW ZEALAND.