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Of course the answer must be that such circumstances might have occnrred, but I do not think that they would. I have always been of opinion, (and this is the main part of the Company's case as laid before Lord Ho wick's Committee) that the adverse circumstances which did occur in the Colony were caused by the Colonial Office, operating through its agents, the officers of the local Government: for example : no one circumstance tended so much to paralize the Company as the massacre of the Wairau, which, I believe, originated in the jealousy and hostility of the local Government towards the Company's Settlement at Nelson. I could offer many other examples, but it may be sufficient for me to say that, whenever accounts reached England of any impediment to the success and prosperity of the Company's first settlements, occasioned by the local Government, more especially with regard to the acquisition of land with a good title, the effect was to confirm and strengthen the impression that the Company was engaged in a desperate enterprise, and that any one who embarked his fortunes along with it must be either a visionary, or a person who had no fortune to risk. The grand impediment throughout as to the first Settlements—l mean Wellington, Nelson, and New Plymouth—was the stale of the land question as respects Native title. My own conviction has always been, that until the large extinction of Native title in Ihe Middle Island after 1846, the success of the Company's operations was impossible; and by the time the news of that extinction reached England, the Company had forfeited its high position in the public esteem by means of submitting to the Colonial Office in return for pecuniary aid. When were the Directors of the Company first made aware that their title to the land was disputed by the Natives? It would be impossible for me to give the exact date, but it was as soon as the news of the fact, as it occurred at Wellingion, could reach England by the ordinary channels, ranging from 4 to 6 months ; and the dale of the fact itself can be readily ascertained by the Committee from some one who was at Wellington at the time. Had the Directors reason to know, prior to November, 1840, that their title to the land was disputed by the Natives ? I cannot recollect with precision. The first emigrants landed in January, 1840. 1 think that they went on very comfortably with the Natives for some time, but how long I cannot say, though the fact may be readily ascertained from some one who was at Wellington at the time. When the date of the dispute of the title shall be ascertained, it will be easy to calculate whether or not the news probably reached England before November in that year. It has been stated in a work entitled " Adventure in New Zealand," written by J Mr. E. J. Wakefield, that on the 18lh November, 1859, the C/ief Te Ilaupera went on h* board the Tory, then lying off Kapiti, and stated to the leaders of the expedition that he had only sold Taitap and Bangiloto, Blind Bay, and Derville's Island, and that he should sell more land to the French ship: that the parly in the cabin loaded him with reproaches, and he left the ship after drinking another glass of grog : that they apprehended, in consequence, Ihe possibility of obstacles arising to the peaceful settlement of Cook's Slrails, but relied upon the protection of the Government, if the Government should interfere, or that the settlers would be strong enough to defend themselves if the Government did not. Did the Directors know of this circumstance in November, 1840 ? The book, I think, was publiseed in 1844. If they received any despatch on the subject from their principal agent, who was the sole manager of the expedition, it will probably be found either in what is called the Company's "Fat Book," or in Ihe Appendix to Ihe Ileport of Lord Howick's Committee of the House of Commons. The reflections of Ihe party in the cabin do not appear to me to deserve much weight,nor should I attach much weight lo Ihe fact itself, if it were clearly established, but should place it amongst a numerous class of similar facts which have probably, in all land-sharking operations in New Zealand, certainly in the greater part of them", where a Native who has gone through the process of what is termed selling land to Europeans, lays the. foundation of a further claim whereby to obtain more blankets, muskets, gunpowder, and perhaps money. But I take the real object of the question to be, to ascertain whether or not Ihe Company, at the time of that arrangement with Lord John Bussell in November, 1840, were conscious of any serious impediment to the due observance by the Natives of bargains for the sale of land inlo which those Natives bad entered with the Company's agent in 1859. My general impression is that they were not. I recollect that, at the time of the arrangement with Lord John Bussell, every one connected with the Company was in a state of high spirits and of sanguine anticipation as to the prosperity of the first and principal Settlement. That slate of mind on the subject in the Directors, the Proprietors, and the public, so far as the pnblic cared