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pany, under your respective appointments, except so far as may be necessary for carrying out the instructions contained in this Despatch.

So far also as the Directors can at present see, the whole of the Salaries must cease on the 31st of December next, and you must therefore consider them as ceasing accordingly.

On the subject of Conveyances, I shall have the honor of addressing you separately, after learning the views of the professional advisers of the Crown.

I have, &c.,

(Signed)
T. C. HARINGTON,
Secretary.

P.S.—A Copy of this Despatch is transmitted to each of the Resident Agents at Nelson, New Plymouth, and Otago, with instructions to give it immediate effect.

William Fox, Esq.,
Principal Agent of the
New Zealand Company,
Wellington.

(Copy.)
Colonial Office,
13th July, 1850.

Sir,

I am directed by Earl Grey to acknowledge your letter of the 5th of this month, inclosing a letter addressed by you under the orders of the Directors of the New Zealand Company, announcing their delivery of the notice of the intended surrender of their Charter to the Secretary of State.

2. Lord Grey thinks it necessary to point out to the Directors that the statement of that letter that the expenses attending the transfer of the Company’s land to the Crown “will, of course, be defrayed by the Government,” is one to which he cannot pledge Her Majesty’s Government by the apparent consent which would be involved in a simple acknowledgment, until this and other questions pending between Her Majesty’s Government and the Company have been investigated.

3. He is also not aware of the particular point to which the last paragraph of the letter applies, as no questions have as yet been addressed by him to the professional advisers of the Crown on the subject of Conveyances, nor has he received any application from the Directors to do so.

4. With these exceptions, Lord Grey has no observation to make on your letter, and proposes to transmit a copy of this correspondence to the Governor of New Zealand with a Despatch of which he encloses a copy for the information of the Directors and for any remarks their part, but which he is anxious to send by the earliest opportunity.

I have, &c.,

(Signed)
T. C. HARINGTON, Esq.

(Copy.)
Colonial Office,
13th July, 1850.

Sir,

I am directed by Earl Grey to acknowledge your letter of the 4th of this month, enclosing a notice under the Seal of the New Zealand Company, that they are ready to surrender the Charter of the Company to Her Majesty and all claim or title to the lands granted or awarded to them in New Zealand: and to state that his Lordship is ready to receive the Charters on the part of Her Majesty whenever they are delivered to him by the officers of the Company to whom that duty is committed.

2. In reference to the Resolutions enclosed in this letter, expressing hopes that Her Majesty’s Government will receive and pay their attention to further explanations of the causes which have prevented the realization of those expectations on which the agreement of 1847 was founded, I am to request that you will convey to the Directors Lord Grey’s assurance that he will not fail to give any statements on that subject which he may receive from the Directors, or other authorized parties, his best consideration.

3. But inasmuch as by the mere effect of the Act, certain duties and liabilities appear to become at once imposed on Her Majesty’s Government by the receipt of the notice at the latest period which the Act allowed, it appears to his Lordship essential that he should ascertain with as little delay as possible the actual position in which Her Majesty’s Government is placed thereby.

4. Under Section 19 of the Act, the lands of the Company revert to the Crown, “subject to any contracts which shall then be subsisting in regard to any of the said lands.” Lord Grey would therefore be glad to receive an account, whenever the Directors are able to complete the necessary investigation, of the contracts with other parties besides Her Majesty’s Government to which any of these lands are (in the view of the Directors) now subject.

5. Under the same Section and under the agreement of April 1847, Her Majesty’s Government become on the one hand subject to the condition of satisfying any liabilities to which the Company may be liable under the existing engagements with reference to the settlement at Nelson, or any liabilities contracted with the consent of the Commissioner; and on the other hand, Her Majesty’s Government take the Company’s assets. Lord Grey would therefore be glad to be furnished in the same manner, as soon as the Directors find it in their power, with an account of these liabilities and of these assets.

6. Lord Grey would farther propose that so long as the Directors continue to exercise the power with which Section 19 invests them, for the purpose of winding up the affairs of the Company, some gentlemen deputed by his Lordship should be placed in communication with them, in order to facilitate those arrangements for which the consent of the Secretary of State may seem to be required, or of which it is essential that Her Majesty’s Government should be kept informed. Of course any gentleman so authorized would exercise no powers, nor would his Lordship suggest that he should in any way interfere with the proceedings of the Directors, or be present at their deliberations, except when they themselves think it advisable for the above-mentioned purposes. And as Lord Grey is happy to understand that Mr. Cox has performed the duties of Her Majesty’s Commissioner so long as they lasted in a manner satisfactory to the Directors, he proposes that Mr. Cox should for the present continue to afford his services in the manner here specified.

I have, &c.,

(Signed)
T. C. HARINGTON, Esq.

Colonial Secretary’s Office,
Auckland, 14th April, 1851.

HIS Excellency the Governor-in-Chief has been pleased to direct the publication of the following Act of the Imperial Parliament relating to the disposal of Lands in the Canterbury Settlement, for general information.

By His Excellency’s command,

ANDREW SINCLAIR,
Colonial Secretary.

ANNO DECIMO TERTIO & DECIMO QUARTO
VICTORIÆ REGINÆ.

CAP. LXX.

An Act empowering the Canterbury Association to dispose of certain Lands in New Zealand.

[14th August, 1850.]

WHEREAS by Letters Patent dated the Twelfth Day of February in the Fourth Year of the Reign of Her present Majesty certain Persons therein named were constituted a Body Corporate, with perpetual Succession and a Common Seal, by the Name