Governor Eyre: but have informed him that he is to take no step in order to carry it into execution without previous consultation with yourself, or authority from you.

I have &c.
(Signed,) GREY.

Governor Sir George Grey, K.C.B.,
&c., &c., &c.

7th August, 1851.

ANNO DECIMO QUARTO
AND DECIMO QUINTO
VICTORIÆ REGINÆ.

"An Act to regulate the affairs of certain Settlements established by the New Zealand Company in New Zealand."

7th August, 1851.

WHEREAS certain Terms of Purchase and Pasturage of Land in the Settlements of Wellington, New Plymouth, Nelson, and Otago, in New Zealand, had been issued by the New Zealand Company before the Fourth Day of July One thousand eight hundred and fifty, and the said Terms or part of them, were in force on that day as Contracts between the New Zealand Company and the Settlers of the said Settlements of Wellington, New Plymouth, and Nelson; and whereas the Association of Lay Members of the Free Church of Scotland, commonly called the Otago Association, respectively: AND WHEREAS by an Act of the Tenth and Eleventh of Victoria, intituled "An Act to promote Colonization in New Zealand, and to authorize a Loan to the New Zealand Company," it was enacted, that if the Directors of the New Zealand Company should give notice to one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, within three Calendar Months next after the fifth day of April One thousand eight hundred and fifty, by any Instrument under the Seal of the Company, that they were ready to surrender the Charters of the said Company to Her Majesty, and all Claim and Title to the lands granted or awarded to them in the said colony, all the powers and privileges of the said Company, except such as should be necessary for enabling the Directors to receive the several sums of money hereinafter mentioned, and to distribute the same among the Shareholders and other Persons entitled thereunto, and for enabling the Directors to adjust and close the affairs of the Company, should cease and determine, and all the Lands, Tenements, and Hereditaments of the said Company in the said Colony should thereupon revert to and become vested in Her Majesty as Part of the demesne lands of the Crown in New Zealand, subject nevertheless, amongst other things, to any Contracts which should then be subsisting in regard to any of the said Lands: AND WHEREAS such Notice as aforesaid was duly delivered by the Directors of the said Company on the fourth day of July one thousand eight hundred and fifty; and thereupon under the provisions of the last recited Act, all the Lands, Tenements, and Hereditaments of the said Company in the said Colony reverted to and became vested in Her Majesty as part of the demesne lands of the Crown in New Zealand, subject nevertheless as by the said Act is provided: AND WHEREAS it is expedient that provision should be made for enabling Her Majesty to amend and alter the provisions contained in such terms of purchase and pasturage as aforesaid: May it therefore please your Majesty that it may be enacted;

and be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same,

(Power to Her Majesty to make Regulations for the Management of the Affairs of the Settlements of Wellington, New Plymouth, and Nelson, in New Zealand.)

1. That it shall be lawful for Her Majesty, any thing in the said Act contained notwithstanding, by Instructions promulgated from the manual or through one of Her Principal Secretaries of State, from time to time to make, or to authorize the Governor of New Zealand or the Lieutenant-Governor of any Province in which any of the said Settlements is or shall be situate, to make terms and regulations for the sale or other disposal of the demesne lands of the Crown within the said Settlements of Wellington, New Plymouth, and Nelson, provided always, that the price which the said monies may be derived from such sale or other disposal of the said lands for the benefit of the inhabitants of the said Settlements respectively, and for the closing and determination of the affairs of the said Settlements, and to empower such Governor or Lieutenant-Governor to ascertain the Boundaries of the said Settlements of Wellington, New Plymouth, and Nelson respectively.

(Fund held on behalf of the New Zealand Company for the public purposes of the settlement of Nelson to be vested in the Commissioners of the Treasury.)

2. And Whereas the New Zealand Company have issued from time to time certain published terms or conditions for the disposal of land in the Settlement of Nelson in New Zealand, by which it was, among other things, provided that the land of the said Settlement should be sold for certain prices, and that the fund to be derived from such Sale should be appropriated in certain proportions to the purposes of emigration and the supply of labour, of founding and maintaining the Settlement, of religious and educational uses, and of Steam Navigation, and other public objects: And whereas many persons have purchased land under the said terms or conditions in the Settlement of Nelson, and Funds may have been from time to time invested in such purchases, which have not as yet been applied to the purposes aforesaid: And whereas the New Zealand Company did by its Agents and Trustees endeavour and manage these funds until the fourth day of July in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty: And whereas, in consequence of such Notice as is hereinbefore mentioned to have been given by the Directors of the said Company on the day last aforesaid, the lands of the said Company in New Zealand reverted to the Crown as aforesaid, upon the condition (amongst others), as expressed in the said recited Act of the Tenth and Eleventh of Victoria, of satisfying any liabilities to which the said Company might then be liable under their existing engagements with reference to the settlement at Nelson: And whereas, before the day last aforesaid, a certain sum of twenty-five thousand Pounds had been invested by the said Company in the names of Henry Aglionby Aglionby Esquire of the Middle Temple, Alexander Currie Esquire of Saint John's Wood, James Robert Gower Esquire of No. 187, Piccadilly, George Lyall junior,