charge made by your Lordship against me, in a despatch to the Governor of New Zealand, on the subject of a letter addressed by His Excellency, to the Bishop of New Zealand, relative to the Missionary Land Claims, which letter your Lordship charges me with having obtained the possession of " in some surreptitious manner which I declined afterwards to explain." Having pointed out to your Lordship the unfounded nature of this charge, I fully expected to have received in return a distinct retraction of it, but am now informed that your Lordship cannot alter the opinion which you have already expressed, as "I have not thought proper to explain the manner in which I obtained the letter which I published without the permission of the writer, or the party to whom it was addressed further than by stating that it was given mo by a 'gentleman' who lias since left the colony." Such beinc the case, I feel constrained to bring the subject once more under vour Lordship's notice, as I must attribute this result to the imperfect manner in which I had brought it before your Lordship, rather than to any unwillingness on your part to do me the justice of apologizing for an injury which your Lordship may have unintentionally inflicted. Permit me shortly to recapitulate the few material facts involved in this matter :—When a Member of the General Legislative Council here, in 1847, I moved for production of certain returns including amongst them the letter to the I'ishop of New Zealand, which His Excellency had written, seeking His Lordship's influence to prevail upon the Missionaries to give up their Land Claims. His Excellency denied the existence of such a letter. A copy of this letter was put into my hands, by a gentleman, which I published in the "Southern Cross" newspaper. His Excellency, apparently extremely irritated at this disclosure, wrote a despatch to your Lordship, complaining of the publication, and stating that I had omitted therein an important sentence, thus conveying the impression to your Lordship that I had garbled the document for the unworthy purpose of bringing it to bear against His Excellency. On becoming acquainted with this charge, at a distance of time, through the medium of the ' Blue Book,' I addressed your Lordship on the subject, proving that the published copy of the letter was verbatim with the original, that His Excellency's assertions were wholly unfounded, and requesting that my refutation of them should have equal publicity, through the ' Blue Book,' with the charges made against me Your Lordship acceded to this request, coupling it, however, with the remark, that I had brought the Governor's accusation upon myself by publishing the 'etter " without the consent of either the writer, or the person to whom it was addressed ; a letter of which I obtained possession in some surreptitious manner, which 1 declined afterwards to explain." 1 then brought this new accusation of your Lordship's under your notice, as already mentioned, but this you have declined to retract for the reasons now stated. To prove to your Lordship that these expressions are defamatory, and unfair. I need only call your attention to the fact, that the Governor's letter to the Bishop was not a private letter, but a public document, and about which, as His Lordship the Bishop remarked, "no secrecy was desired.'' His Excellency therein requested the Bishop to communicate its contents to the Missionaries, ('Blue Book,' 1850, p. 209.) thus affording prima Jacie evidence, in your Lordship's possession, and not to be rebutted without special knowledge to the contrary, that the letter was so far public that its contents could not have been surreptitiously obtained ; a charge which your Lordship has not scrupled to make without the smallest evidence to support it. Again. Because I published it without the consent of the writer, or the party to whom it was addressed, the propriety, or impropriety, of that proceeding cannot, however, in the slightest degree warrant the application to me, of having surreptitiously obtained it. Your Lordship speaks of my having declined to communicate the name of the party who furnished me with the letter. I have never yet been asked to do so, either by His Excellency the Governor, or by His Lordship the Bishop, the writer of the letter, and the party to whom it was addressed, though the latter went so far as to say that it had been, at one time, his inten-