"At present New Zealand is in high favour at home, and but middling at Sydney. In England, New Zealand signifies Port Nicholson, and the Company's land adjacent, where there are now located some five or six thousand souls. To the north of the island, on an arm of the frith of the Thames, is Auckland, where the governor has fixed his head quarters, with a population of 1000. The situation of Auckland is certainly far before Port Nicholson, though an indifferent seaport. Port Nic, as the natives call it, is surrounded by abrupt hills, perhaps five or ten acres of level land being scattered in petty parcels round the coast.

"The passage to this port, or open sea, is flanked by reefs, and the wind is often so violent as to render three anchors necessary to hold a ship. The coast adjoining the cities called Britannia, Thorndon, or Wellington, is shoally, and vessels lay off half-a-mile. In some publication the place has been likened to the Bay of Naples, and it is so, according to the adage, "as chalk is to cheese." I think it was the same veracious work which said a cargo of soap and blacking found ready sale with the natives, though they wear no shoes. Ships continue to be taken up and sent from England to this place with emigrants of various sorts, some refugees of parishes, which are for the most part an idle set; a few rural labourers; an undue proportion of petty shopkeepers; some settlers of enterprise and talent, and a sprinkling of your gentlemen adventurers who gamble in billiards and land.

"A road is now forming about fourteen miles long to get at some available country, there being hitherto but one solitary piece of cultivation to supply 5 or 6000 mouths. A number of people have left, some to Cloudy Bay, on the south side of Cook's Straits,

and others to different parts of New Zealand or to Sydney. More recently another Company have located an extensive tract of level land near Mount Egmont, called Taranaki, where there is some progress made in cultivation. From the glimpse I had of it, the scenery is attractive, the lofty peak of Mount Egmont rising at once from the plain, like the Alps from the vale of Lombardy. The port, if it can be called one, is only a roadstead; and indeed there is no port on the west coast without a dangerous bar at the entrance."

Lieutenant John Wood, in his late work, entitled "Twelve months in Wellington, Port Nicholson," published by Richardson, Cornhill, London, agrees with Mr. Thorp in thinking Auckland preferable for the capital to Wellington, which I do think he disparages too much. The following is his remark on this subject "Auckland, in the course of years, must become the chief colony, for here nature has done what neither capital nor puffing can do for Wellington." There is some truth, however, in Mr. Wood's observation, that vessels from Sydney to England, invariably avoid Cook's Straits, their course homewards being directed either to the north or to the south of New Zealand, Indeed, straits in general are always avoided if possible by captains of ships. Notwithstanding however these remarks of Messrs. Thorp & Wood, I am still of opinion, that Port Nicholson was perhaps the place best adapted for the capital, from its fine harbour, and being in the very centre of the country, as the Middle Island lies contiguous to it on the other side of Cook's Straits. It is, moreover, on the high road to Valparaiso, in South America, where steam ships have already commenced plying to England by

way of the isthmus of Panama, and by the English royal mail steam ships from Chagres, on the Atlantic side, to Jamaica and England; and within three hundred miles of the Chatham Islands, lying in the direction of Valparaiso, which contain nearly a million of acres, one fourth being excellent land, and peopled almost entirely by New Zealand natives, five hundred of whom sailed from Port Nicholson to these islands in 1832. It is, moreover, in the very centre of the two great staple productions of that country, flax and oil, the greater part of the whale fishings in New Zealand, being in Cook's Straits. Indeed, Governor Hobson himself is reported to have said, that he had been deceived in regard to the fertility of the Middle Island, and that in the event of its being colonized to a respectable extent, there must either be two Governors for New Zealand, or the seat of Government must be transferred to Port Nicholson.

I am not singular in considering Auckland inconveniently situated for the metropolis of the Great Britain of the south, as Mr. Heaphy says of it, "I cannot think that it is a proper place for the seat of government, nor do I believe that it will, for any length of time, remain the capital." The Hon. Mr. Petre, son of Lord Petre, in his excellent history of the Company's settlements, after alluding to the large British population at Port Nicholson, Wanganui, New Plymouth, and Nelson, all of which may be said to be in Cook's Straits, makes the following remark, "Under these circumstances, the extreme inconvenience of placing the seat of government on the peninsula at the northern extremity of New Zealand, must be apparent to every one. If Captain Hobson, had been sent to New Zealand to found a small town,

there would, perhaps, be no objection to the spot, but he was sent to govern a colony, and it does seem almost unaccountable that he should have neglected to visit Port Nicholson, and the harbours in Cook's Straits, and should have fixed the seat of government at so great a distance from the people to be governed, and from that part of New Zealand which is, and must continue to be, the most attractive to settlers."

In a newspaper published in 1842, at Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, there is the following remark, "At Wellington, or Britannia as it was first called, there are not less than 5000 white inhabitants; and it was by all expected that the seat of government would shortly be removed thither, which with deference to the opinion of the governor of New Zealand, we certainly think the preferable situation."

The inhabitants of Port Nicholson, during the years 1840 and 1841, laboured under great disadvantages, owing to the title under which the New Zealand Company, as well as others, held their lands, having been called in question by the Governor and Council of New South Wales, under whose jurisdiction the country then was; and at one time the settlers there had it actually in contemplation to move off in a body to Chili, in South America. But the recognition of New Zealand by the Queen of England as an additional colony-the appointment of a governor independent altogether of New South Wales, and, above all, the settlement of the claims of the Company to their lands, upon a fair and reasonable footing, by the home government, dispelled the cloud which for a time overshadowed them, and saved the colony from ruin.

The following is a summary of the arrangement en

tered into by the Government and the Company, and the same principle was applied in regard to the titles of all the other claimants of lands in that country.

With respect to all lands acquired in the colony under any other than that of grants made in the name and on behalf of her Majesty, it is proposed that the titles of the claimants should be subjected to the investigation of a commission to be constituted for the purpose. The basis of that inquiry will be the assertion on the part of the crown of a title to all lands situate in New Zealand, which have heretofore been granted by the chiefs of those islands, according to the customs of the country, and in return for some adequate consideration.

An account of all the just and moderate expenses of the Company hitherto incurred in forwarding the colonization of New Zealand to be made out, and the crown to grant the company as many acres of land as shall be equal to four times the number of pounds sterling which they shall be found to have expended in the manner stated.

The Company to forego all claim to any lands purchased or acquired by them in New Zealand, other than the lands so to be granted to them, and other than any lands which they may hereafter acquire from the crown, or other persons deriving their title from the crown.

It is proposed to apply to all other British subjects the rule to which the New Zealand Company will be subject in respect of the lands claimed by them within the colony. This advantage, however, will be offered only to those whose lands were acquired before the 5th day of January, 1840, the date of proclamation issued by Sir George Gipps on the subject.