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available in the purchase of Crown Lands in any part of New Zealand.

7. Twenty-six (26) of the native claimants were also to have two hundred (200) acres each out of the land thus ceded by them, in such places as the Governor might set apart for this purpose; and at such times as the land might be required for their use.

8. The natives have not, as yet, evinced any desire to select this land, which they regard more as a provision for their future wants, than as needed for intermediate occupation. They have, however, applied some of the scrips, before alluded to, in the purchase of land in the Wellington and Nelson Provinces.

9. The above statement embraces the whole of the more important arrangements concluded with the natives, previous to Sir George Grey's departure; it being then fully contemplated, both by his Excellency and by myself, that the further details of this purchase would have been brought to a much earlier termination; but circumstances, which could be neither foreseen nor obviated, have hitherto interfered to prevent this.

10. The conflicting claims of different tribes, residing on both shores of Cook's Strait, to the unpurchased lands in the Nelson Province, occasioned considerable difficulty. For instance, the Ngatitoa tribe of Porirua (with whom the first treaty was concluded) had unquestionably, as the earliest invaders, a prior right to the disposal of the district. This they never had relinquished; although, after the conquest, their chiefs partitioned out to the subordinate branches of their own tribe, as well as to the Ngatiawa, a few of whom took part with them in the conquest, the lands which these now occupy in the Nelson Province.

11. The latter parties did not assume to themselves a power of sale, except over the lands they actually occupied; yet some of the leading Ngatitoa chiefs, professed to have independent and exclusive rights, while the majority, and even the parties making such assertions, when closely examined, always acknowledged that the general right of alienation vested in the Ngatitoa Chiefs of the Northern Island. In fact, their relative rights through intermarriage, the declining influence of the chiefs, and other causes, had become so entangled, that, without the concurrence both of these occupants and of the remnants of the conquered Rangitane and Ngaitahu tribes, no valid title could have been secured.

12. To arrange, therefore, with the various claimants, as opportunity might offer, was the next duty to be attended to. Accordingly, a section of the Ngatiawa, who had taken part in the invasion, but had returned to their possessions at Waikanae, Taranaki, and other places in the North Island (intending to migrate from one island to the other as their inclinations led them), were paid a sum of nine hundred pounds (£900) for the extinction of their title, on the dates and in the proportions specified as under:—

March 2, 1854, for Wairau and Arapaon, £200.

March 10, 1854, title of Taranaki Natives, £500.

November 24, 1854, for Te Awaiti, £200.

13. In November, of the year 1854, Mr. Brunner, the Government Surveyor, and Mr. Jenkins, the Interpreter at Nelson, were despatched to mark off the boundaries of such reserves as would be required for the resident natives. These officers did their utmost to perform this service; but, owing to the jealousy on the part of the natives to the Ngatitoa sale, they were unable (except in a few instances) to effect any permanent adjustment of the reserves and boundaries. The reports of these officers are herewith enclosed.

14. In December of the same year, a large concourse of natives, from different parts of the Nelson Province, were assembled, on one of their periodical visits, at Porirua, to hold a tangi or lamentation over some of their relatives recently deceased. At this meeting there were present so many influential representatives of the various tribes, that it afforded a favourable opportunity for discussing the merits of their respective claims.

15. These meetings resulted in an unanimous desire, on the part of the assembled tribes, to have the second instalment (then due) paid to them at Porirua, instead of at Nelson, as originally intended; and in order that the whole of them might participate in it (which they could not do if one instalment only of five hundred pounds (£500) were paid), they requested that four (4) years' instalments should be handed over to them at once, urging as a reason that some of their chiefs had recently died of the measle epidemic, while two of them who had taken a prominent part in the conquest, though still alive, were in a precarious state of health, and that it was their unanimous desire that this payment should take place in their presence.

16. To this deviation from the original terms I had some difficulty in assenting; however politic it might otherwise have been, in consequence of the understanding the second payment should be made at Nelson; but the natives from that province were themselves the most urgent in requesting me to forego this intention. My reasons for acceding finally