Provincial Secretary’s Office.
Wellington, 2nd September, 1857.

HIS HONOR the Superintendent has directed the publication of the following despatch with its enclosure for general information.

WILLIAM FITZHERBERT.
Provincial Secretary.

Colonial Secretary’s Office,
Auckland, August 20th, 1857.

SIR,--

With reference to my letter of the 9th January last, I have the honor to enclose the copy of a Memorandum from Mr. Commissioner Cooper which was intended to have been forwarded at the same time. From its not having been published or having been filed with other enclosures to that letter it may possibly have been omitted.

I have to request, in justice to Mr. Cooper, that his Memorandum may now receive the same publicity which has been afforded to other portions of the correspondence relative to the purchase of lands in the Province of Wellington, as without the explanation which it affords, an undeserved censure would appear to be cast upon a most zealous officer in public service.

I have the Honor to be,

Sir,
Your Honor’s most obedient servant,

E. W. STAFFORD.

Auckland,
December 22nd, 1856.

SIR,--

I observe in a Memorandum of Mr. Bell on a Despatch of the Superintendent of Wellington, dated the 24th ult., upon the subject of Land purchasing generally in the Wairarapa and Hawke’s Bay districts the following sentence.

“ When I sent a Surveyor up the East Coast with copies of the Deeds in his pocket, to lay out the reserves by the Natives and he could not agree as to what was meant, and (Mr. Cooper not meeting him at the various places as agreed upon) more than two months were lost in trying to arrive at what was after all, a precarious arrangement of boundaries.”

The tenor of the above is clearly to throw a censure upon me for neglect of duty, and as Mr. Bell could only have been led to make the statement from ignorance of the circumstances, I beg leave to offer an explanation of them.

The Surveyor in question is Captain Smith, who was originally appointed for the purpose of Surveying the boundaries of Blocks and Native Reserves under the instruction of the Native Land Commissioner. But as he had been latterly employed in preparing lands for sale and settlement under the Commissioner of Crown Lands at Wellington I was obliged when his services were required by me to survey the reserves on the East Coast previous to paying the last instalment to the Natives—to apply to Mr. Bell who communicated with Captain Smith accordingly.

He was however instructed at the same time to Survey and report upon the inland track from Te Oreore to Whareama and when I left Wairarapa, in October 1855, for the Coast, I was obliged to forego the advantage of his assistance in fixing boundaries on the way down and it was arranged that we should meet at Whareama Captain Smith proceeding to the inland track whilst I went by the Coast.

It is quite true that I did not meet Captain Smith at the place agreed upon because on my arriving there after the time that gentleman had not made his appearance, and after waiting three or four days at Flat Point, I was obliged to return my duties not admitting of my remaining any longer there.

As I travelled along the coast I settled the various reserves (excepting one at Oroe about which the Natives were quarrelling) marking the boundaries with stakes &c., and leaving at each village a note for Captain Smith, containing full particulars of every Reserve.

On arriving at Mr. Pharazyn’s station to my astonishment I met Captain Smith starting on his expedition round the Coast instead of inland, when I told him what I had done, and on my next meeting him in Wairarapa, in April last, he informed me that he had found my notes sufficiently explicit and had had no difficulty in any case excepting one which he had been able satisfactorily to settle.

The plot of his work was not at that time completed and he had resigned his appointment to undertake a contract survey, so that I have never had an opportunity of knowing the particulars of what was done. But I may be permitted to observe that Mr. Bell’s Memorandum is the first intimation I have had that the arrangement of these boundaries which that gentleman states “more than two months were lost in trying to arrive at” was a precarious one, the clear understanding between the Natives and myself, the meagre information I was able to obtain from Captain Smith, and the sub-