A.—No. 1b

No. 5. Copy of a DESPATCH from the Right Hon. Earl Granville, K.G., to Governor Sir G. E. Bowen, G.C.M.G. (No. 105.) Sir, — Downing Street, 4th October, 1869. I have received your Despatch No. 81, of the sth of July, relating to my Despatches No. 12, of the 29th January, and No. 30, of the 26th Eebruary, 1869. 2. In observing on the periods at which the official and unofficial accounts of the first recent Maori outbreaks had reached me, I did not desire to impose on you the necessity of a long and detailed explanation. My desire was, Avith the least possible appearance of censure, to point out to you that intelligence which was, and was deemed by you to be, of the greatest importance, had reached England through private channels (of course by telegraph) some time before I received any intimation of it from you. Your present appeal forces me to say explicitly, that as the same modes of communication are open to the Government as are open to individuals, I think that it would have been better if you had sent a telegram by the Suez mail, indicating the general nature of what had occurred, and of the proposals which Her Majesty's Government would have to consider in the short period (a feAV hours as it happened) which elapses between receiving and ansAvering your Despatches. 3. The observation that I did not collect from your Despatches the limits within which disturbances were apprehended, or the number of Natives in arms, was not intended as a censure. 4. I scarcely understand with what object you notice, in the sth paragraph of your Despatch, my opinion " that the terrible nature of the catastrophe which " had occurred led you to overrate the magnitude of the danger to the Colony." 5. I collect from the passage marked C in that paragraph that, at present, you are not disinclined to admit that your apprehensions are not borne out by what has since happened. 6. I now turn to the matters treated of in my Despatch No. 30. I have, elseAvhere, expressed myself satisfied with the explanations which you transmit respecting the treatment of the Chatham Islanders, and the seizure of some Natives as hostages on the West Coast. 7. I think it natural, after reading those explanations, that the circumstances did not occur to you as requiring any special report. 8. I am, however, surprised that you did not distinctly record and justify a circumstance so unusual as the proclamation of reAvards for the production of certain persons, dead or alive; and also that you left me to collect for myself, a matter so important in the history of this outbreak, as the scantiness of the force maintained by the Colony at the period of the Poverty Bay massacre. I have, &c, Governor Sir G. E. Bowen, G.C.M.G. GRANVILLE.

No. 6. Copy of a DESPATCH from the Right Hon. Earl Granville, K.G., to Governor Sir G. E. Boaven, G.C.M.G. (No. 106.) Sir, — Downing Street, 6th October, 1869. The postscript to your Despatch No. 80, of 4th July, treats of matters not connected with the subject of that Despatch (the appointment of an officer to administer the Government in your absence), and I think it most convenient to deal with it separately. I entirely approve of your having informed Mr. Eox that you were utterly unable to comply Avith his request to detain the 2-18 th Regiment in New Zealand, but on perusing the reasons which you gave to that gentleman, I cannot help observing on the inconvenience of embodying in a communication to your Responsible Advisers what cannot be understood otherwise than as a complaint of the conduct towards you of the Home Government.

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DESPATCHES EROM THE SECRETARY OE STATE