Bishop or myself. The error of this transaction therefore rests on those who were "uilty of this first improper proceeding. ° I have, &c., (Signed) G. Grey. The Right Hon. Earl Grey, &c., &c. (Enclosure, No. 1.) Auckland, New Zealand, July 12th, 1849. My Lord, — My attention h s been lately called to a Despatch in which the Governor of New Zealand accuses me, the avowed editor of the "Southern Cross," of having omitted an important sentence in publishing a letter to the Bishop by himself. < In vindication of my character, I am constrained to address your Lordship, ( to relieve myself from the charge of having garbled, for an unworthy purpose, a document entrusted to me —an accusation the lowest and most derogatory that ( can be imputed to a public man. ) Let me be suffered, for the sake of clearness, briefly to recapitulate the circumstances that have led to the result On ihe ! 4th September, 1847, from my place in Council, I gave notice of motion for the production of certain papers connected with the Land Claims, among which was specified the copy of a Despatch recently addressed to the Lord Bishop of New Zealand by the Governor, in which his Excellency had requested his Lordship to use his influence with the Church Missionaries to induce them to relinguish their lands. His Excellency, among other observations in answer, said, that "he had no recollection of making any request such as had been referred to"—an assertion which he repeated after ihe orders of the day had been disposed of. On the 1 Sth, I brought forward the motion, according to notice. It was met by his Excellency's assertion that " since the last meeting of Council, he had carefully examined the copies of his several letters to his Lordship, but that he could find no terms in any of them that bore the least resemblance to what had been alleged as grounds for the motion." On the 21st, still confident in the accuracy of my information, I made a final effort to attain my end, by bringing the matter forward, no longer in the shape of a motion, but of a request. It was again negatived in like manner as before. I moved for this correspondence in consequence of the Governor having refused to give any information as to the grants or class of grants which the Government intended to disturb, the withholding ot which was operating most iujuriously upon the country by disinclining many to cultivate who would otherwise have expended both money and labor upon their properties, and for the production of the forementioned dispatch in particular, conceiving that his Excellency was not warranted in thus seeking to attain a political and by means of clerical influence. I have no wish to disguise the fact that my supposition of undue influence was based on insufficient grounds, having been subsequently made aware that the character of this letter and the cause of its being written had been misapprehend , cl by me and now freely and candidly acknowledge my mistake. But the very blameU-ssness of the letter only increases my surprise at the course which his Excellency thought fit to adopt when requested to produce it. Why he should have ever desired what could have been so easily justified I cannot tell, unless it be that when taken by surprise the desire to equivocate overbore his better judgment, betraying him into a false position which regard for appearances constrained him to maintain on the subsequent occasions. Meanwhile a copy of the letter had been communicated to me to prove the < - truth of my affirmation in Council that such a document really did exist. I made 1 it public, a proceeding which I still think perfectly unexceptionable notwithstanding the inuendo thrown out in his Excellency's Despatch, and the reflections

Blue Book, 1848. Gov. Grey to Karl Grey, No. 1268.

Southern Cross, Oct 2, 1847.

G orer not' Grey to Earl Grey, No. 126,8.