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9. In conclusion, I have only to add ihat I shall rejoice if any part of the information which I now send you should prove useful to you, with a view to the satisfactory enforcement of the criminal law to the reformatory discipline of offenders, or to the beneficial application of their labour in the Colony under your Government. I have, &c, (Signed) GREY.

]78. Conial Secretary's Office, Auckland, 28th June, 1854.' Sir, Referring to my letterof the 24th instant, No. 173, I have now the honour by direction of His txcelleucy the Officer Administering the Government to forward enclosed "a Return of Criminalssentenced by the Supreme Court at Auckland, specifying the nature of their offences and punishment for the last two years ending on the sth instant." I have the honour to be, Sir, Your very obedient servant, Andrew Sinclair, Colonial Secretary. J. E. Wakefield, Esq., Chairman of Committee on Secondary Punishment.

Copy. Downing-street, sth December, 1853. Sir, — With reference to the discontinuance of Van Diemen's Land as a Penal Settlement, my attention has been drawn by the Lieutenant-Governor to the circumstances that it is still the practice of your Government to send to that Colony occasional parties of convicts who may have been tried in New Zealand and sentenced to transportation. I am aware that you have been entirely justified in hitherto following this course in pursuance of the instructions which you received from my predecessor, Sir John Pakington dated the 3rd June, 1852, that, under the peculiar circumstances of New Zealand he was not prepared to put a sudden and immediate close to the means of Secondary Punishment on whi«h you had been able to rely up to that date. It is necessary, however, that I should now instruct you that you must on no account send any more more convicts from New Zealand to Van Diemen's Land. As you were apprized by my predecessor that the system must gradually be abandoned, and were directed to turn your attention to finding a substitute. I trust that you will have been prepared for the present instructions, and will have considered the changes that will be requisite in New Zealand. For some general observations on the means of providing for the punishment of offendces within the limits of the Colonies in which they are committed, I may refer you to Earl Grey's Circular Despatch dated the 28th of September, 1850. I have already in a separate despatch addressed you on the subject of the disposal of Military Prisoners. # I have the honour, &0., „ „ (Signed) Newcastle. Governor Sir George Grey, K.C.8., &c., &c, &c.