185 C .

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

PETITION OF SETTLERS AT KORORAREKA.

Presented to the House of Representatives 9th August, 1856, and ordered to be Printed.

To the Honorable the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Memorial of British Settlers at Kororareka, who suffered loss of Property in the Government Wars with the Natives, in the years 1844 and 1845. Humbly sheweth, — That in order, for the introduction of circumstances which led to the disastrous losses which brought poTerty and ruin to your memorialists, Your memorialists respectfully beg to state, that on the 17th June, 1843, twenty-two of the most influential of the Nelson Settlers were barbarously massacred at the Wairau by the Natives of New Zealand, under their unbridled and furious leaders Rangihaeta and Rauparaha. That Mr. Willoughby Shortland was then Acting Governor of New Zealand, and the above outrage was permitted to remain unnoticed until the arrival of a new Governor, then shortly expected. His Excellency Captain Fitzroy (having been appointed Governor of New Zealand,) reached Auckland in December, 1843, and arrived at Wellington in February, 1844-; from thence he proceeded to Nelson, and afterwards sailed for Waikanae where Rauparaha and his tribe were located, and with whom his Excellency had an interview upon the subject of the massacre above stated, on which occasion his Excellency was pleased to convey to them his pardon with explanations of the greatness of the English nation which would not endure a repetition of such displays of barbarism. That this temporising policy of his Excellency Governor Fitzroy engendered in the minds of at least) the disaffected Natives at the Northern part of the Island, a contemptuous consideration of his Excellency's declarations of the greatness of the British nation, and promptitude in punishment of aggression. That on the 4th July, 1844, the Native chief Honi Heki landed at the town of Kororareka with a number of armed followers, and remained there three or four days, during the whole of which period he and his party behaved insultingly to the British Settlers; plundering some of their stores, killing their pigs, and to display his contempt for British authority, cut down the flagstaff ; Honi Heki having exclaimed in the hearing of several of your memorialists, that " Rauparaha killed white men at the Wairau, why should I not do the like here ?" That upon his Excellency Governor Fitzroy receiving intelligence of the destruction of the British flagstaff, he chartered the ship " Sydney"—then lying at Auckland—and dispatched her to Sydney ; upon her arrival there, Sir George Gipps ordered the embarkation of two hundred of Her Majesty's troops, and the same were landed at the Bay of Islands about 20th August, 1844 „

E.—No. 7.