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" him in this matter, appeared determined to convert him to nothing more or less " than a mouthpiece. He appealed to honorable members not to spoil the chance " the province had of getting a fair consideration of its claims in the General "Assembly." If the report of the debate is correct, and Ido not suppose your Honor will deny it, as it is extracted from a paper which has been laid before Parliament, I think there is quite sufficient to justify the statement I made. 4. As regards the second charge which your Honor states I made against you, "of attempting to get the command of the police force to use it against the " General Government," I must again ask your Honor to read my despatch, and you will find that, from the first word of it to the end, I made no allusion whatever to the police, or to your Honor wishing to obtain the command of it. The subject is only incidentally mentioned by Mr. Dargaville in his letter, as the commencement of the conversation, in which he states that you said, " Yes, what " is more, I can easily believe it within the range of possibility that we may yet " see a British man-of-war in that river (the Waitemata), with her guns pointed " towards the city, to coerce us into submission to some intolerable measure of the " Government at Wellington." The subject must have been a matter of pretty general conversation at the time, as I have a distinct recollection of its being told to me in Wellington soon after the occurrence had taken place, and long before Mr. Dargaville's information was tendered. 5. As regards the third charge, I have no reason whatsoever for supposing that Mr. Dargaville would deliberately invent such a statement as he has placed in writing; nor do I understand your Honor to deny that such a conversation did take place, although you state that you do not recollect it. Under these circumstances, with these statements before me, I think it was not an unfair inference for me to draw, that you had yourself been the first to give currency to a report similar to the one of which you complain to the Secretary of State. 6. You now state that threats of the kind you allude to have been made by supporters of the Abolition measures in your presence, and I think it very possible that many very foolish remarks may have been made by injudicious advocates on both sides of the question. But I have yet to learn that such threats have in any way been countenanced by any one in authority; and your Honor must further be perfectly aware that the Colonial Government have no authority whatever over Her Majesty's forces, and that any requisition to the captain of a man-of-war must emanate from the Governor himself; and, therefore, when you stated to the Secretary of State that you believed there were substantial grounds for fearing that opposition to the Ministry might involve the City of Auckland being cannonaded by Her Majesty's ships, you distinctly implied that, for the purpose of supporting the Government of the day, I should, in your opinion, be capable of personally ordering the bombardment of a defenceless city, an atrocity which even in actual war would disgrace any officer who committed it. This is a grave charge, and one which I think required much stronger evidence than a newspaper report or mere rumour to justify. 7. Your Honor further complains that the despatch was not sooner laid before Parliament; but you must remember that the despatch was not one which was volunteered by me. It was simply the comments which I considered necessary to make upon your letter to the Secretary of State; and I think your recollection of official correspondence of that character will remind you that it is not usual, under ordinary circumstances, to publish such correspondence before the answer is received. I had hoped to have received the answer by last mail, in which case I should at once have laid it before Parliament; but as it did not arrive, and your Honor asked for the despatch, I thought it better to lay it on the table of the House without waiting for the answer of the Secretary of State. 8. In compliance with your Honor's request, I shall forward by outgoing mail your letter, together with my answer, and also your second letter, enclosing a copy of the Otago Guardian of the 16th instant. I have, &c., NORMANBY. His Honor the Superintendent of Auckland, &c., Wellington.

By Authority: George Didsbtjby, Government Printer, Wellington.