To the Editors of the Australian and New Zealand Gazette.
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To the Editors of the Australian and New Zealand Gazette.
7, Gloucester-place, Portman-square, Sept. 7, 1853.
SIR,--I perceive by your leading article in your last week's paper, that you are among those inclined to blame me for abstaining from issuing the Canterbury pamphlet as a publication. This is entirely a matter for the consideration of the committee of land-purchasers, for whose information it was solely put together.
The pamphlet consists of nothing more than a short statement founded on copious extracts from the recorded proceedings of the Canterbury Association. These extracts are also given, and the accounts as furnished by Mr. Blachford, the accountant of that body. What it contains, therefore, can only be interesting to parties concerned, and I see no valid reason for its publication. But this is not the only pamphlet. You do not appear to have seen a similar production on the special and general delinquencies of the Association, written with really great literary pretension. It was published in the colony last year by the "well-known farmer and magistrate there," Mr. Cholmondeley.
Since the circulation of the pamphlet among the land-purchasers here, what, I have no doubt, was intended as a complete answer to this and every form of criticism on the failure of the Canterbury scheme, has appeared in various public journals, in the form of speeches delivered at the Lyttelton breakfast and Greenwich dinner, given by his friends to Mr. Godley, on his departure from the colony and arrival here. I should feel obliged, therefore, if you could find space for the following rejoinder.
I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,
HENRY SAVAGE.
As it is obviously impossible that anybody not on the spot could fairly estimate the real extent of the cardinal error of abandoning the great road, and the consequences thereof in not only retarding the development of the colony, but aggravating the hardships and disappointments of the colonists, I commence with a short description of the place.
The most available district for colonizing purposes in New Zealand is situated on the east coast of the middle island, extending from the Kaikoris to the Waitangi river. That part of it where the Canterbury block is chosen, consists of two and a half million acres--north, south, and west of Banks's Peninsula--an island-like block of near 300,000 acres of mountain land on the coast line, equidistant from the before-mentioned natural boundaries. About one-half of the peninsula is heavily timbered; and the plain radiates from its steep grassy sides at an easy ascent to the snowy range to the westward. The immediate neigh-
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bourhood of the peninsula is swampy, but the whole of the low lands are capable of profitable cultivation. The several rivers running eastward from the mountains have bars at their mouths, which impede navigation and drainage; but they are all easy of removal. Lyttelton is the port town, consisting of a wharf, jetty, sundry streets of straggling wooden houses, laid out at enormous and most preposterous cost (one of the death-blows of the scheme), regardless of the difficulties of the site, which is the broken-down margin of an extinct volcano. The town is five miles from the heads of the harbour of Victoria, which is a cleft in Banks's Peninsula, about seven miles long and a mile wide. Akaroa is another settlement, in a gully at the head of another cleft in the mountain or harbour, on the south side of the peninsula. Christchurch is the capital, about eight miles due north from Lyttelton, reached by a bridle-path over a mountain 1200 feet high. The river Avon flows through it, but is only navigable to a point two miles below the town. The plains are a gentle undulating slope or prairie from the sea-shore to the mountain-range behind, varying from ten to sixty miles in width. Extending in all directions from Christchurch, for from ten to fifteen miles, there is a rich but very marshy land, the only land deemed particularly adapted for tillage: the remainder is very capable of depasturing stock of all kinds, being full of rich indigenous herbage mixed with fern and other impracticable vegetation. Cattle can be put on it at once, but it costs from 30s. to 60s. per acre to bring it into a fair state of cultivation.
The climate of that part of New Zealand, although very healthy, is as variable as that of England. In the winter it is nearly as cold as in England, and owing to violent storms of wind and rain, rather more disagreeable.
The plains are watered by numerous streams of excellent water, which can also be got anywhere in the lowlands at ten feet digging.
Lyttelton gets a precarious supply of water from the ravines intersecting the town; the well-water, attainable only at a depth of seventy feet, being scarcely drinkable. The fuel is nearly exhausted, and must soon be brought from the inexhaustible woods of Banks's Peninsula. The only access for goods and chattels is by the Avon river, which, owing to a dangerous bar, is closed in bad weather. Need another word be said about the "secret of the colony's prosperity and development {vide Mr. Adderley's letter in the Times), viz., the great road?" Is this the Italian climate, the well-water at the port for ten feet digging, land ready for the plough, and other disgraceful mis-statements in the Canterbury Papers?
To colonize this district the Canterbury Association made a bargain with the New Zealand Company, and sent out Mr. Thomas, and subsequently Mr. Godley, a prominent theorist on colonization, and "born to this peculiar mission," according to Mr. John Simeon, "to pioneer and make preparations," which this gentleman, at one of the interesting provincial meetings, asserted would be "such as were never heard of in any settlement." It is now well understood that Mr. Simeon, with other members of the Association who acted on these occasions, unconsciously succeeded in imposing on the land purchasers an old system of Mr. E. G. Wakefield's, such as past experience has amply condemned.
It has become a fashion, with some among the Association, to treat every remonstrance coming from the land-purchasers as abusive ingratitude. It is admitted on all sides that they were taken in, nay, shamefully defrauded; but I am not aware up to this hour that the Association were ever accused of lending themselves knowingly to the deception: in fact, much pains have been taken to show the contrary by every commentator on their proceedings. It is incontestable that a large number of very respectable people, whom age and circumstances would otherwise have kept at home, were induced to buy land and emigrate to Canterbury, through the representations made by the Association, or their agents. It is equally incontestable, that these representations turned out illusory altogether. I have brought together authorities enough in the pamphlet to prove this at least.
Last year a pamphlet addressed to Mr. Godley was published in the settlement
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by Mr. Cholmondeley, who informed us in his speech at the Greenwich dinner, that he was a farmer and a magistrate in the colony, and knew almost every one there. He says, "A singularly beautiful, but purely abstract, idea (the migration of a complete Church community?) has been married to the very clever, but somewhat unscrupulous, experience of a practical and worldly mind, (Mr. E. G. Wakefield's?) Thus, thought was united to fact, and the Canterbury system was the result. The thing gathered shape, a site for a colony was chosen, noblemen were canvassed, rooms hired, clerks engaged, an Act of Parliament sketched out, passed and repassed without emendation, land orders were sold, ships chartered, promises and engagements made, the best platform orator in England was at once retained under the title of Bishop Designate, religious speculation grew hot and zealous. Meanwhile in New Zealand lands were surveyed and works begun. You, my dear Sir (to Mr. Godley), were first heard of at Wellington, then at Canterbury. It became known," says Mr. Cholmondeley, a little further on, "that an extensive system of touting had been practised at the rooms in London. Is it advisable to continue an odious system of puffing which only now misleads boys and girls, and disgusts those it can no longer mislead?" Mr. Cholmondeley was then at the colony experiencing the full effects of the puffing and touting when he wrote this. This is pretty well for a gentleman present at the Greenwich dinner got up to lend a sort of eclat to Mr. Godley's return, and re-establish, at the same time, the damaged credit of the Association.
The system Mr. Cholmondeley calls "touting" was not restricted to the Colonists' Rooms in the Adelphi. Public meetings were got up at Birmingham, Canterbury, Ipswich, Reading, and various places in London, when the Bishops of Norwich and Oxford, Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Adderley, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. John Simeon, and others, actually pledged their rank and position in the country as guarantees that for 3l. an acre the land-purchasers should have what would render the land at Canterbury superior (at least to that extent in comparison) to any other land in New Zealand. The Bishop Designate went so far as to offer his sons and daughters as hostages for the schools and colleges, professing to be on the eve of his departure to organize the church: and be it remembered, at that very time, land could be had at Wellington, practically provided with these things, at a sixth of the sum.
In reply to sundry severe criticisms on the faithlessness of these promises, the land purchasers' money having been taken, we were referred by Lord Lyttelton to a letter written by Mr. Selfe, one of the members of the Association, then specially engaged in vindicating the Canterbury system. It appeared in the AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE; but the following extract requires particular attention, because it was written to meet the charge of misappropriation of church money, since proved correct:-- "The land-purchasers knew, for they were present at the drawing of the lots, the smallness of the amounts received: they knew that it was intended that the Bishop Designate would sail to New Zealand, and return to this country for consecration: they knew that then nearly the whole of the funds applicable to ecclesiastical purposes must of necessity Be absorbed in the reserve of 10,000l. for the bishopric, in various expenses connected with Mr. Jackson's voyage, and in outfit, passage, and salaries of himself and clergy, six or more, who left England for New Zealand before the close of 1850. If, knowing all this, and in the face of Mr. Godley's despatch, received before the first ship sailed, and faithfully describing the state of things in the Settlement, any one expected to find on his arrival at Port Lyttelton, churches, School-houses, and parsonages erected, and permanent provision made for the payment of salaries, such expectation would be manifestly unreasonable; but they knew all this: they had made up their minds to the gallant venture, and with a wise temerity determined to go." The fact is, the colonists did not expect anything of the sort; but they did expect to find the state of things to some extent agreeing with the statements founded, it was alleged, on Mr. Godley's faithful despatches from the colony itself.
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The first four ships, carrying 791 emigrants, sailed in September, 1850; and another body of colonists in June and July, 1851. Mr. Godley's first despatches arrived in August, 1850; Mr. Thomas's plans in July, 1849; Mr. Godley's second despatches in May, 1851. They are copied in the pamphlet. The following is an extract from a private journal sent by Mr. Godley to Mr. Adderley, and published in the Canterbury Papers by the latter gentleman: I think all those who see the Canterbury Settlement will admit that, as I have said before, no first body of colonists from Britain have ever found so much done to prepare for and welcome them as ours will find. In fact, difficulties, in the usual sense of the word, as applied to colonization, there will be none! no roads to make, no forests to clear, no want of food or lodging, or of facilities for choosing or settling on land. Many things will, no doubt, be expensive at first; for example, wood, some articles of provisions, and labour; but every man's enterprise may be made the subject of calculation on paper, as in an old country. Humanly speaking, there is no uncertainty or chance of disappointment to provide against. He may lose his money; but if he does (again I say humanly speaking) it will be his own fault, and not the result of obstacles which he could not foresee. I feel certain that a vast deal of discontent and mutual bad feeling takes its origin from the discomforts and the embarrassments experienced by men thrown with their wives and children upon a barren shore, at the beginning of the winter, without a road or a clearing, or a sign of civilization to welcome or to cheer them."--Canterbury Papers, pp. 194, 195. Now, who, on reading this, saying nothing about the despatches to the same effect, could wonder that the land-purchasers resolved on the "gallant venture" to the colony? Exactly what Mr. Godley said could not take place, did take place.
How was it that he wrote home urging for more money to make the great road, without which, to use his own words, the plains would not be fit for settlement; and why did he say that there was ample temporary accommodation for 700 or 800 people at a time, and when the ships arrived, twenty decent people could not be housed--and after he received the 10,000l., the sending which duly appeared in the Canterbury Papers, with an assurance that the emigrants might be certain that this road would be nearly finished on their arrival--how was it that the road remained untouched, and places instead created to the amount of 1500l. per annum, exclusive of his own salary of 800l., and the remainder of the money spent on other objects?
Sir George Grey, on Mr. Felix Wakefield's recommendation, took the experienced road maker, Mr. Roy, who was then working on the Wairarapa line, to Canterbury, where, after properly surveying the proposed line of road from Port Lyttelton to the plains, he actually offered to make it. Why did Mr. Godley reject his offer, and then a few days afterwards apply to Sir George Grey for expenditure for roads on the plain? "Now of all the absurdities that could be dreamt of," observes a competent authority, on the spot at the time, "I can't fancy a greater than spending a penny on making roads through a level (where the first surveyor took a cart up to the hills, I forget how many miles in a right line), while the access from the port is neglected." The justice of this remark is too obviously exemplified at this moment. The principal road made by Mr. Godley in the plains, being unmetalled, is fast falling into ruin; and I am moreover informed by one of the most intelligent and respectable farmers of the district, Mr. Bishop, in a letter dated April last, that he is obliged to pass through the lands of seven different people to get to church, and owing to surface water, cannot get to church at all six months out of the twelve.
It has been suggested that it may not be quite right to urge the circumstances altogether so strongly against Mr. Godley.--The truth appears to be that Mr. Godley was not the man for the occasion. How cruelly absurd to send an invalid as the "pioneer" to make the unheard-of preparations so vaunted by Mr. Simeon. "We all said," says a Wellington correspondent, "when we saw Godley going through the water-cure in a delicate state of health, what a pity such an amiable man was not a settler instead of a pioneer. He was fit to establish and lead a
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society, not to anticipate it." It was, too, Mr. Godley's misfortune, besides ill health, which kept him, during eight months, 150 miles from the scene of his pioneering,--his return to the colony a few hours before the arrival of the first four ships being a mere accident,--to find himself incessantly struggling to get out of scrapes incidental not only to his false position, but to the absurd land regulations concocted at home for him by the Association. He was doomed to perpetual inconsistencies which marked his career even down to his last appearance at the Greenwich dinner. Almost his first act after he did find his way to Canterbury, was to throw open the district by means of licences at a nominal price, at once rendering such rights purchased at 3l. an acre of no value whatever. With much sound discretion, it is true, he urged the temporary diversion of church moneys for the completion of this road and for other public works; but the Association having spent it in emigration, had before them, at that very time, "the choice of difficulties" alluded to by the Government auditor; and they wrote off on their books, as their alternative, some waste land in favour of the ecclesiastical fund, Mr. Godley remaining without funds.
"The whole available resources," says the Government auditor, "having been expended in other departments, it was determined to make good the balance due to the ecclesiastical fund by an allotment of land, a proceeding hardly in accordance with the spirit of the charter. Doubtless, the money being spent, it was a choice of difficulties." "Yes," says the Times editor, "that is just it. When an apprentice borrows a sum of money received on his master's account, that too is a choice of difficulties." The consequence of this embarrassing choice of difficulties was, that eighteen months after the foundation of the colony the colonists themselves were obliged to subscribe to build a church. Mr. Selfe takes vast credit for the Association because they advanced 500l. out of the ecclesiastical fund as their subscription. Compare the extract from Mr. Selfe's letter on the ecclesiastical fund--which is wrong? Mr. Selfe or the auditor, whose official report he so flatly contradicts? And here I may venture to ask Mr. Selfe, since he is the avowed champion of the Association, who arranged these abstracts from Mr. Godley's despatches "faithfully describing the state of things" which the unhappy colonists on their arrival found to be as unfaithful as could be? Who edited the shipping report, so scandalously untrue, declaring that the emigration operations, owing to the demand for land, had yielded a profit, when the accounts at the time, if properly kept, must have showed a loss of 8000l.? Who were the committee who passed the following report (vide Canterbury Papers):-- "The general result of their emigration service has been stated with great clearness and ability by Mr. Bowler, their late shipping agent, which has already been printed and circulated." And further on-- "It will be seen that the finances of the Association are in a sound and healthy state. The means at disposal for colonizing purposes appear adequate to insure the successful continuance of their works. Your committee has framed a scheme for the future administration of the funds destined for religious and educational purposes; and so far as it has gone, the plan in all its parts has been attended with perfect success? The utmost publicity will be courted, and the most detailed information of the expenditure of the Association will be afforded." Mr. Cholmondeley here inquires if "in pursuance of this latter part of the announcement, the accounts accompanying the resolution (Canterbury Papers, p. 17) should be considered a serious statement or a practical joke; and how much of the fund set apart (if any?) for ecclesiastical purposes has been actually invested in the colony in a manner the colonists could approve of?" And I would also inquire of Mr. Selfe, who contrived that budget of wretched falsehoods, the Canterbury Papers, whence these few of the multifarious mis-statements in that shameless publication have been taken?
Who are the parties alluded to in the Guardian newspaper--the organ of the Association--as follows:-- "Imputations and pecuniary embarrassments of the Association consequent on the ill-omened alliance with justly suspected names?" Who are these people? Mr. Godley? Mr. Wakefield? Which? Who is the
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"secret adviser" of the Association? Who sanctioned the payment of the 20,000l. in salaries and commissions, and made 2000l. do for schools and churches. Whose ridiculous statement was it that it would cost 32,000l. (vide Mr. Godley's speech at the Greenwich dinner) to complete the great road, after Mr. Roy, the well-known colonial road-maker, had made a special estimate to the amount of 12,500l.
The wharves, jetty, Mr. Godley's house, were paid for out of the miscellaneous fund,--entirely and solely contributed by the land-purchasers. The Association mortgaged them to the Bishop's trust-fund. The Association now claim them practically as their property exclusively, and threaten to sell them, too, unless the colonists come to "terms with Messrs. Sewell and E. G. Wakefield." Why was the Bishop Designate, the "best platform orator" of Mr. Cholmondeley, sent to the colony at an expense of 2000l. only to come home again, after spending three or four weeks in the place, and vanish as if by magic? Every clue to the wondrous disappearance of the Bishop Designate has been so studiously concealed, that were one not credibly informed of his well-being in a less ostentatious sphere at Stoke Newington, it would be one's bounden duty to invoke the aid of the Royal Humane Society.
"It is two years since," said the worthy clergyman, Mr. Paul, at the valedictory breakfast, "the first detachment of colonists had landed on the shores of Canterbury; and month after month the arrival of the Bishop of Christchurch among them had been deferred. Would it be too much to ask their respected guest, Mr. Godley, on his return to England, to represent to those in whom the appointment was vested, how assiduously the coming of the bishop was looked for? How bitter would be the disappointment, if, under any conceivable circumstances, this most important part of the Association's ecclesiastical scheme were abandoned, or even its execution delayed a moment more than absolutely necessary." The above fact as to the Bishop may probably spare Mr. Paul the "hope deferred," or any other kind of suffering connected with such empty anticipations.
Have the Association been asked for explanation? Yes, they have; and decline altogether to explain, notwithstanding the oft-repeated assurance that "the most detailed information should be given." The land-purchasers are simply referred to a certain Act of 1851: a comprehensive measure, certainly, if, as the Association allege, it not only empowered them to do all this, but, contrary to the spirit and intention of the charter, gave them absolutely the best public property in the colony, and, at the same time, releases their consciences from all moral susceptibilities.
The personal friends of Mr. Godley at the colony invited him to a parting breakfast, and his friends at home invited him to a dinner in commemoration of his return. On both occasions, important statements were made which ought not to be passed over. Mr. Godley, in his address at the breakfast, reminds the colonists of all that would be expected of them as specimens of a highly civilized and enterprising population. He dwells on the dignity of labour. He tells them that they expected too much, but admits his own utopian enthusiasm also carried him away; and, having pointed significantly to the wide, wide waste, whilst he deprecates all objection to his view that the colony (he did not say scheme) was not a failure, and acknowledging that they had experienced "cruel and undeserved disappointments," he retires amidst the tears and blessings of his auditory.
At the dinner we find him, after dwelling on the natural capabilities of five millions of acres of waste land, speaking of the Canterbury population--really a superior class of people (they had bought land to the amount of 75,000l., and carried with them in cash at least 150,000l.), "as between three and four thousand immigrants of both sexes well selected, with the proportion of the sexes duly preserved, and, generally speaking, of good character and industrious habits." "Collectively," says he, "they are considerably poorer than the average population of an ordinary English village. Anything like a college would be thrown away upon them. Do not be afraid to leave them to themselves. Throw them into the water
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and they will swim," bringing in the name of Burke to sanction the recommendation; then turning to the few members of the Association present, "Let them revile you;" (who reviles them?) "you have done your work: a great and heroic work. You have raised to yourselves a noble monument, and laid the foundation of a great and happy people." Thank you, Mr. Godley! You have brought us at last to a sequel not inconsistent this time at all events--fraud, robbery, burking, not even allowing the poor English village the sort of "choice of difficulties" alluded to by the too courteous Government auditor. One feels quite anxious to witness the effect of this flattering account on such men as Captain Simeon, Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Brittan, and the various captains, clergymen, and doctors, Mr. Godley tells us of in his speech at the breakfast, as occupied in the "honourable" employment of digging and driving in stock.
A graceful and opportune acknowledgment, but not less than those who know his lordship would expect of him on such an occasion, fell from Lord Lyttelton, who rose forthwith and emphatically disclaimed, as well he might, on the part of the Association, any share of credit in the progress of the colony. "What the colony is," said his lordship, "that have the colonists made it." Concluding his speech with this extraordinary admission, "Whatever faults or errors the Association might have committed, they had been committed, not in pursuance of the principle on which the Association had been founded, but through the misapplication or neglect of them;" here again leaving us in the dark as to that mysterious and perverse primum mobile--was it Mr. Godley or the "secret adviser" who beggared the scheme of its "principles?"
With the utmost respect for private friendship, it is impossible to refrain from asking Mr. Adderley to condescend to be more explicit (see Greenwich dinner)--why he brought Mr. Godley into comparison with Raleigh, Baltimore, or Penn? If it might be to render the intensely impertinent assurance (the bottom of Mr. Godley's disputes with Sir George Grey, so fatal to the road) in his friend's description of the colony and colonists more glaring, I should suggest an itinerant astronomer, with the solar system in a deal box, compared to Copernicus or Herschel, as a more becoming model of illustration.
Reverting now to the real state of the case between the land-purchasers and the Association, a number of English gentlemen have actually been seduced by the Association and their agents 16,000 miles from the positive comforts of an English home to a district so shut in, that up to this moment it required their utmost exertions, with spade and mattock, to procure the commonest necessaries of life. Now, having by dint of sheer manual labour, attended with great personal privation, under disappointments which Mr. Godley himself acknowledges were "cruel and undeserved," at last vindicated his claim to the position of a respectable peasant, he takes breath and endeavours to recall to mind what brought him there. Mr. Godley exhorts him not to forget what the Association has done for him, points to the plains, and disappears. But thereupon rise before him, in mystic guise, Mr. Sewell and Mr. E. G. Wakefield, the two delegates from the Association, sent to induce them to undertake their responsibilities; and straightway the one informs him that it is not his "business to tell that truth, which the other could tell much better," if the colonists could contrive to extract it from him; and both the delegates there and then retire to Wellington without affording the colonists the least chance of commencing the operation of extraction to which they were so pointedly invited. I conscientiously state this as intrinsically what took place on the only occasion when these gentlemen put themselves into special communication with the colonists. At home the Association informs him through Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Godley, and Mr. Selfe, that he was greatly to blame, as he ought to have known that what was promised was an impossibility. "We sent you," say they, "in comfort to the colony, and at least put you in possession of your land; in other colonies they did not even do that. We have been at a great deal of trouble and some expense, and incurred liabilities to do so much for you; pay us for our property; relieve us of these responsibilities, and we will sell our reserves." Our property! our reserves!!
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Now the reserves, as I said before, consist of the wharves, jetties, Mr. Godley's house, and emigrants' barracks at the port. Their ridiculous cost ruined the scheme. They were paid for out of the land fund, solely contributed by the land-purchasers, and destined for public use. The bishopric trust fund (10,000l.) was then strangely lent by the trustees on these reserves, and the money spent tor emigration purposes by the Association.
The clergy and schools depend on the ecclesiastical fund, which, having been diverted, as we are told by the government auditor, to other objects, is now represented by waste and unsaleable land (letting now at 1s. per acre), which the Association could not dispose of.
The Association advanced 23,000l. at various times to meet their personal liabilities as agents, trustees, land-sellers--(which they appear to have been each and all at various times)--in founding the colony. They subsequently took 12,000l. worth of land, anticipating then no other chance of repayment.
The clergy inquire how their stipends are to be paid.
The Association propose through their delegates, Messrs. Sewell and Wakefield, to pay them out of the proceeds of the reserves mortgaged to the bishopric. The bishopric, on the other hand, claims these very proceeds as interest accruing on the mortgage.
The Association threaten to sell the reserves unless the 23,000l., together until their liabilities to the Government and the New Zealand Company, are paid or undertaken by the colonists.
X. Y. Z., rather an intelligent peasant, astounded at this confused sort of "dabbling in the funds," suggests in his letter to the Lyttelton Times, that having had their diversion with the ecclesiastical fund, the Association only go on in this way about the preserves to make game of the colonists.
The Association intends it to be no laughing matter. "We were," say they, "an amateur body, never intended to last long; we longed to get rid of a great trouble, which the law enables us to do." They defy X. Y. Z., and brandish the Absolution Act of 1851 in his very face.
Most severely do we find Sir John Pakington remarking on the manoeuvre which enabled the Association to do this, particularly stigmatizing their successful attempt at introducing the requisite clause in the New Zealand Bill, as that which it would have been "impossible for him to consent to, had he foreseen the use the Association would have put it to." It ought also to be remembered, that the land-selling functions of the Association were put a stop to for not keeping their engagement with the Government.
It was at one time my hope that the Association would be induced to meet the land-purchasers in a just and conciliatory spirit. Were this at all likely, Mr. Godley would not have dared thus to insult the colonists; but there is every expectation, from recent advices from the colony itself, that a renewed spirit is now re-animating those humble villagers! (the natural result, possibly, of the judicious proportioning of the sexes), which will in all probability put to the test an allegation 1 --if true, so discreditable to such men as constitute the Canterbury Association, viz. "the claimants for justice will be painfully reminded how much wealth and social position have to do with blame or praise; and how hard it is for truth to prevail over the influences which may be arrayed against her in this still aristocratic land."
HENRY SAVAGE.
