Jumb. 40.

303

THE
NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE.
Published by Authority.

WELLINGTON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1865.

Declaration of Indemnity for F. D. Fenton, Esq.

By His Excellency Sir GEORGE GREY, Knight
Commander of the Most Honorable Order
of the Bath, Governor and Commander-
in-Chief in and over Her Majesty's Colony
of New Zealand and its Dependencies,
and Vice-Admiral of the same, &c., &c., &c.

WHEREAS by an Act of the Parliament of New
Zealand, made and passed in the twenty-ninth
year of the reign of Her present Majesty Queen
Victoria, No. 1, intituled "An Act for indemnifying
persons acting in the suppression of the Native
Insurrection," it is enacted amongst other things,
that-"All and singular the officers of Her Majesty's
forces and all and every other person and persons
whosoever who shall at any time before the passing
of this Act have acted by authority of the Govern-
ment, or in execution of orders or directions of any
officer of Her Majesty's Imperial or Colonial forces,
or of any Judge, Magistrate, or other person acting
under authority of the Government in or about the
quelling of the said insurrection; the resisting,
apprehending, detaining, confining, or imprisoning of
any person or persons concerned or suspected to be
concerned therein; the destroying or damaging of
property belonging to any person or persons con-
cerned or suspected to be concerned in the said
insurrection; the preserving or restoring of peace
or good order in any part of the said Colony; the
apprehension, detention, confinement, or imprison-
ment of any dangerous or disloyal person or persons,
or of any believed or suspected to be dangerous
or disloyal; or the providing for the safety of Her
Majesty's peaceable and loyal subjects, shall be, and
they are hereby severally and respectively freed and
indemnified of and from all actions, suits, indict-
ments, informations, prosecutions, proceedings, and
liabilities whatsoever, which they or any of them
respectively, may have been or may be or become
liable or subject to, for or by reason or by means of
or in relation to any act, matter, or thing done by
them respectively before the passing of this Act, by
such authority or in the execution of such orders or
directions as aforesaid." And further, that "in
order to prevent any doubt which may arise whether
any act, matter, or thing, alleged to have been so done
as aforesaid shall have been done under such authority
or in execution of such orders and directions as afore-
said, it shall be lawful for the Governor to declare any
such act, matter, or thing, to have been done under
such authority or by such orders and directions as
aforesaid."

And whereas an action was lately commenced and
is now pending in the Supreme Court of New
Zealand, Northern District, wherein one Kihirini
Kanga, an Aboriginal Native of New Zealand, in the
Province of Auckland, is plaintiff, and Francis Dart
Fenton, of Auckland, gentleman, one of the Justices
of the Peace for the Colony of New Zealand, is
defendant, in which action the plaintiff seeks to
recover damages, for that, as alleged by the plaintiff
in the said action, the defendant on or about the
twenty-first day of December, 1864, assaulted the
plaintiff and imprisoned him, and detained him in
prison without any reasonable or probable cause :

Now therefore, I, Sir George Grey, the Governor
of New Zealand, in pursuance of the said Act, do
hereby declare that the acts, matters, and things,
done, or by the declaration in the said action alleged
to have been done, by the said Francis Dart Fenton,
and thereby complained of, and for which the plaintiff
therein seeks to recover damages as aforesaid, were
done under such authority or by such orders and
directions as in the said Act mentioned.

Given under my hand, at the Government
House, at Wellington, this fifteenth day
of September, one thousand eight
hundred and sixty-five.

G. GREY.

By His Excellency's command,
HENRY SEWELL.