In another column will be found a letter from Mr. Moody, which we most earnestly recommend to the notice of our leaders. The suggestions contained in it are exceedingly important, and ought to be attended to without any delay.

A friend at Sydney tells us that there are more dishonored than honored bills there.

'Civis's' last letter and several other communications are unavoidably deferred this week.

On Wednesday the 15th Nov., the dwelling-house of I. Baker (a respectable widow lady,) at Hokianga, was totally destroyed by fire, and every article of property valued at £500, burned. It is not known how this unfortunate affair occurred, as the owner and servants were absent at the time.

A child born in the year 1840—is he in the eighteenth or nineteenth century? [In the 19th century.—Editor.]

SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE.

ARRIVED.

Nov. 25—Brig Diana, 104 tons, Captain M'Kie, from Sydney on the 13th Nov.

26—Brigantine Deborah, 120 tons, Captain Wing, from London 3rd June; touched at St. Vincent's, St. Jago's, and Twofold Bay. Brings passengers.

26—Brig Orion, of South America, 186 tons, Captain Sanders, from Sydney the 16th Nov. Passengers, the Catholic Bishop of Australia, Dr. Polding, the Rev. Mr. Gregory, and John Anderson Brown, Esq.

26—Brigantine Kate, 70 tons, Captain Dunning, from Sydney 16th Nov.

Dec. 2—The whaling brig William Stovell, Captain Davidson, with a full cargo of oil. She proceeds at once to Sydney.

To the Editor of the New Zealand Advertiser and Bay of Islands Gazette.

SIR,—Having individually taken a lively interest in obtaining signatures to those important documents the Memorial and Protest, I have thought it advisable, as well as expedient, to send to you my impression on the subject.

When it is considered, in the furtherance of the above object, I have visited the once promising district of the Bay of Islands—by mill, Kawakawa, Waikari, Pah, and Kawakawa inclusive, which are numerously inhabited—it may perhaps be thought competent to give a pretty correct estimate of the evils resulting from the New South Wales legislation for a distant dependency like New Zealand—more especially, this being a free Colony. Of its baneful effects upon Kororareka, you yourself are an eye witness where the Commercial interests are still in so deeply,—then with perfect sense may I assure you the other remaining districts are even in a much worse condition. Places which a few months ago were flourishing, now show nothing but desolation and dullness. Houses and stores are untenanted, and those occupied sinking money—the occupants only awaiting the last favorable opportunity to sell out and leave the Colony. Farmers there are none—for the gentlemen residing on their lands are merely living on their means from the total absence, not to say paucity, of operative agriculturists. Such a state of things cannot last long, for the Merchants must, of necessity, shut up their stores, while all those who have the means left must return from whence they came. Some vigorous measures should be adopted without delay, or total ruin must soon overwhelm us. The stagnation is now arrived at such a pitch, that something next akin to despair pervades almost every countenance.

Even where that has been, the strong attachment is expressed towards our Colony, and all steadily wish to be freed from the trammels of the New South Wales Government.

Having had much Colonial experience where grievances called forth active and strong measures, and having absolutely witnessed the general distress and stagnation prevailing in every branch of trade and occupations, calling forth industry and the investment of capital in the Bay, I cannot but think that if a Public Meeting were convened at an early day, of all the Landholders in the Bay of Islands, and others interested, to take into consideration the best and surest means of remedying the evils under which we labor, it would be productive of the best results. The levelling object of such Meeting, in my humble opinion, should be, the final completion of the signatures to the Memorial and Protest, and to raise funds to defray the expenses necessarily attendant on such matters; also, to send a Delegate to Downing street, to plead our cause. I write not only as a considerable Landholder, but as one feeling a strong interest in the prosperity of this fine Colony.

I am, Sir, your’s most faithfully,

PETER MOODY.

Nov. 30, 1840.

NEW ZEALAND.

In our columns of to-day we publish a Report of the debate which took place on the motion of Lord Elliot respecting the right of Britain to the exclusive sovereignty of New Zealand. The fallacious reasoning by which that motion was supported, was opposed by Lord John Russell, who, we are happy to say, argued precisely as we have done on this question,—and that is no small satisfaction, considering that we have been so violently and dogmatically opposed not only by all our contemporaries of the Press, but by His Excellency the Governor and the majority of the Legislative Council. We shall have a series of articles to submit to our readers on this subject; in the mean time we feel no small degree of confidence in the validity of our own position, from the strong confirmatory declarations of Lord John Russell in its favor. [Sydney Gazette. [We are proud of such an able coadjutor in the sacred call of humanity.—Ed.]

Speech of Lord John Russell in the House of Commons on the 7th July, on the New Zealand Question:

There was one point on which the Committee of the House of Lords on the subject of Colonization had made a very short report. They stated that 'it appeared to the Committee that the extension of the colonial possessions of the crown was a question, the policy of which belonged exclusively for decision to her Majesty's Government.' The committee of the House of Lords, after a great deal of inquiry came to the opinion that this was a subject which properly belonged to the crown; and he did not believe that a committee of the House of Commons could come to any other conclusion. It would be impossible that a committee could point to those parts of the world where colonization might be established, where Governors might be sent, or where the English Crown alone could claim a right of possession. The noble lord (Lord Elliot) had entered into some arguments as to the right of the claim of sovereignty in places discovered by civilized nations, where wild tribes only were the inhabitants, into which, however, he (Lord J. Russell) would not follow him. He did not dispute the principle of the passage quoted by the noble lord from Vattel. On the contrary, he thought the conduct of the British Government had been in entire accordance with the principle so laid down. But although right might accrue to the first discoverer, and although of such right one could have little doubt, yet, it might be disputed whether the right of Sovereignty remained, if the party making the discovery did not avail themselves of it for a long series of years. If then, it appeared that the right which existed in 1783 was not for a long period after that time asserted and enforced, and if, still more, on the contrary appeared that declarations had been since made apparently relinquishing, at all events not confirming that right, it certainly was necessary that there should be some new title to the possession of any such sovereignty. In 1769 Captain Cook asserted the right of the British Crown to the sovereignty of the Southern Island of New Zealand. In the year 1817, it was recited in an Act of Parliament, that there had been murders and other crimes committed in New Zealand, Otaheite, and other islands which were not within his Majesty’s dominions; and there was a recital in an Act passed in 1824 to the same effect. It had then been recited in two solemn Acts of Parliament by the three separate branches of the Legislature—that New Zealand was a place where offences were committed, and which were considered offences committed not in Her Majesty’s dominions, but in places out of her Majesty’s dominions, and provision was made for trying these offences in places within her Majesty’s dominions. Such being the solemn declaration of Parliament, without adverting to what took place in the year 1835 under the direction of the Earl of Ripon with regard to the recognition of the National Flag, could it, he would ask, be considered imperative on the Government, because a number of gentlemen chose to meet in London and form themselves into a Company on operations in New Zealand, to agree at once to assert the British sovereignty over that country? (Hear, hear.) If they did this, it might extend to the asserting of our right of sovereignty over every place that ever had been yet discovered by British Navigators, however long the time that right might have remained unexercised, or whatever Navigators of other countries might have done. However, there had existed of late years strong reasons why it was desirable that New Zealand, a great part of it, at least, should not be left the prey of a number of persons who were settled there, many of them being convicts escaped from New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, and producing a state of society the evils of which were fully stated by Lord Glenelg in his despatch.—Then the question was, that, in what manner, if colonization was to be attempted, if the authority of the British crown was to be established, that should be effected? While Lord Glenelg held the Office of Secretary of State for the Colonies, that question was brought under the consideration of the Government in the shape of an application from the Company which had been formed in London for colonizing New Zealand. That question was a good deal considered by the Government, with a view, if possible, to give their sanction to such a plan; but the Government finally refused their sanction. It was afterwards debated in the House of Commons upon a bill brought in upon the subject, but the House likewise refused its sanction. It was a plan to which the strongest and gravest objections might be made. His (Lord John Russell's) opinion of it was this—Colonies might take place in various ways. One way was for persons being themselves emigrants proceeding to a distant country, furnished with a royal charter, and purchasing land from the Natives such as they might conceive (as Vattel said) William Penn so laudably did. Another mode is, to have the Colony founded by the sovereign power of the state. The Crown of this country might send out a colony, with a person at their head, armed with a commission, as was the case with certain colonies established in North America, and having certain laws prescribed to them, by which they were to be bound, and a regular form of government established to which they could maintain it. (To be Continued.)

Kororareka: Printed by G. A. Eagar.