The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-30 00:00:00

gone too far in allowing the inquiries to take place at
-411,--or-it does not-go-far-enettgh—in-not-atkrwing-the-
,Committee to report criminally. By the rent
betwixt and between course the House will find
itself at last in a dilemma, from which it can only es-
cape by a speedy prorogation.

In the explanation which Lord STANLEY gave on
the 19th of April of the condition of our colonies, in
respect to their present capacity for receiving emi-
grants, after explaining that New South Wales was
completely overstocked with labourers, that South
Australia was bankrupt and pauperised, his Lordship
said that New Zealand offered better prospects for
emigrants, or seemed more likely to absorb labour
than any of our settlements in the ,South Seas. The
little hope and little consolation which the Noble
Lord's statement seemed calculated to afford to the
thousands who are perishing at home have been, we
are afraid, entirely done away by the latest arrivals
from that part of the world. The Patriot of Wed-
nesday published a letter from a Mr. QUAIFE, a mis-
sionary in New Zealand, which contains some intelli-
gence calculated, to excite alarm for the future pro-
gress of that colony, and even for the future safety
of the colonists.
The letter, we must remark, is without date, but
it quotes a document of the 4th of December. The
Patriot says it "has just come to hand," and as the
latest arrivals from that colony are of the date of
January the Ist, it has come, we presume, by them.
Besides this uncertainty as to date, Mr. QUAIFE has
been the editor of a newspaper which was suppressed,
and his disappointment on that head may give a colour to
his remarks, against which we must warn our
readers. We shall quote his account of the matter,
both in order to place him fairly before them, and in-
form the public of the arbitrary law, as to the press,
under which the colonists are placed. After giving
a• history of the up-hill establishment of his journal, of
his desire to promote order and obedience, and of his
growing conviction that the trimming proceedings of
the Governor would require him to take a bolder
Utfarnr, he £4.0y6--.-
At length, the celebrated "Act of Council" arrived,
and was published in our Gazette. The moral objects
for which I had entered on my undertaking were now too
manifestly at stake to admit of further dlay in taking
my ground. That Act annihilates native property, and
stands in direct and glaring contravention of the pub-
lished declarations of the Ministry, and of the promises
made, in their name, to the native chiefs, both on the
acknowledgment of their independence and the cession
of their territory. I knew that, in other colonies, conse-
quences the most calamitous to the aboriginal races had
resulted from the non-recognition of aborginal pro-
perty ; and my eye instantaneously glanced through
the vista of years, pervaded by a chain of oppressions,
retaliations, wars, subjugations, &c., terminating in
the slavery of the New Zealanders, or their entire
destruction, as in Van Dieman's Land. The prospect
was appalling, but I could see nother, The only hope
appeared to rest in the growing enlightenment and phi-
lanthropy of the age. I hesitated not a moment to adopt.
my, course.; I resolved to write against the Act with all
my power, and to enlist the interest of the settlers
against it, by showing them how much they were in-
volved in the calamities it entailed. This I did ; and I
flatter myself I demonstrated the iniquity and absurdity,
of the Act to the satisfaction of all. When the Commis-
sioners arrived, they could not put it in force. The New
.Zealand Government, however, took the alarm, and sent
me a notice, placing me under the Sydney Newspaper Act
passed by Governor Darling, requiring 6001. recogni-
zances, and subjecting an editor to arbitrary trial, and,
for a second conviction, to transportation. The Lieutenan-
t Hobson, told a deputation that he should
persist in applying this Act, although when he found the
whole colonial press against him, he relaxed his se-
verity; but it was too late, for our paper was then
extinguished.
From such laws and proceedings we are not sur-
prised that Captain HOBSON is not popular in New
Zealand, and the danger to be apprehended from the
natives, which Mr. QUAIFE thus describes, would be
less alarming were the settlers united and the Go-
vernor respected.
On the 20th of November a most atrocious murder
was perpetrated upon all the members of a family living
at Paroa Island, only some five or six miles from Koro-
rareka, and within the Bay of Islands. The family,
named Robertson, consisted of Mrs. R., a widow lady,
with two of her own children, a little boy about six
years old, and an infant daughter eighteen months old ;
a little half-caste daughter of Captain Brind, and Tho-
mas Bull, a servant man. The last named bad his head
cleft horizontally 'with an axe, while asleep in the gar-
den, in the afternoon. The little boy is aupposed to have
been thrown over the rock alive into the'sea. The others
were
-found in the kitchen, burnt to a cinder, but with
deep gashes still visible on the back of the neck or the
occiput. The house was plundered, and then burnt to
the ground.
A Coroner's inquest being called, it came out, in evi-
dence, that certain natives charged a young chief;
named Makatu, with the horrible deed ; and they pro-
duced some articles as a part of the plunder, which they
alleged were received from him. To obtain this informa-
tion, two gentlemen, residents at Kororareka, and
jurors, were under the necessity of risking their safety,
by going to that island alone, and spending an entire
clay among the natives, to the amount of two or three
hundred, who are in a state of most equivocal excite-
ment on the occasion. They stated that they were seve-
ral times - greatly alarmed for their personal safety.
They would not have gone unprotected ; but the Police
Magistrate peremptorily refused to act or give orders,
and; Without those orders, the constables would not pro-
ceed to the island. The Favourite, a British frigate,
lying in the harbour at Russell, with two of her Ma-
jesty's discovery ships, was applied to by the Coroner
for boat's crews to aid in capturing the murderer or mur-
derers, but refused to take any part in the affair with-
otit the Magistrate's orders. If anything was to be
done, therefore, Messrs. Spicer and Wilson were under
the necessity endangering their lives to accomplish it,
and this they did. They could not, however, get the
young man away. He was the next day brought up in
a canoe, by his father, Rube, evidently with a view to
reward, and then he would deliver him only into the
hands of those two gentlemen, and that, on condition
that be was to remain with them till the inquest was
over, when, it is clear, it was expected he would be
given up again to the natives.
There was a reward offered to the parties who disco-
vered the murderer ; but it appears that the real cause
of their readiness to make the disclosure, was the mur-
der of the little half-caste, who was the grand-daughter
of the great chief, E Rewa (Rivers). This circum-
stance seems most providentially to have interested him;
and he has not expressed regret, as far as I am informed,
for any other part of the massacre.
While Messrs. Spicer and Wilson were at the island,
and fully expecting the aid of police, or military, or of
some boat's crews from her Majesty's ships, for the pur-
pose at once of protecting them, and securing the per-
son of the alleged murderer, those ships left the bay, and
did not deem it proper to wait for further communica-
tions from the Police Magistrate; thus proving that they
fully concurred in withholding every endeavour to cap-
ture the assassin. The Favourite has this very day re-
tinned to her post, almost three weeks after the emer-
gency which required her prompt interposition.
Native witnesses were examined on the inquest.
They all regarded him as the murderer - but there was
nothing more than circumstantial proof in their state-
ments. Their evidence, added to a number of other cir-
cumstances, led me to conclude that they did not bring
forth all they knew. Ile acknowledged the deed himself,
described the manner of its perpetration, and stated some
motives by which he was prompted. To the question,
whether other parties were concerned, he would give no
very decisive denial. Here the inquest failed of its point.
Subsequently, at Auckland, he stated he was induced by
his father to commit the horrid crime, and that he, the
father, had a claim upon the island. One of the wit-
nesses showed a previous knowledge of his murderous
intentions. .
On the close of the inquest, Makatu was committed by
the Coroner's warrant, and not given up into the hands of
his father ; and from that circumstance has arisen the

i excitement above mentioned, which has nearly spread
44tself over the whole of this island, north of the Thames.
Now, there is every reason—l speak deliberately, and
from a twelvemonth's observation—to believe that this
miserable state of things arises out of the absurd en-
deavour of Captain Hobson to set up British authority
in these islands, without being furnished with physical
means, or intellectual capacity to do so. Trade has
been everywhere crushed ; prosperous settlements have
been ruined • his own capital is perishing ; British law
cannot be enforced ; the native mind is roused to a most
dangerous state of irritation ; the missionaries them-
selves are full of apprehensions ; and all, I believe, attri-
bute the crisis to the Government follies. And it may
be safely affirmed that Captain Hobson and his Colonial
Secretary have not a single friend, native, English, or
foreign, in the whole country. The gloom which rests,
both on public and private affairs, is appalling ; and
where the scene will end I do not know.
Let it be remarked, that the inhabitants of the Bay of
Islands are, at the present moment, indebted for their
safety to a most providential and singular occurrence.
had taken a threateonfingeii
One day last Week- tribe to which Alakatti belonged
position at Waitangi, or Ma-
There they expressed their determination tarva, on the side opposite to Kororareka.
thation to be avenged
on the white people for the
native evidenecato prove the fact,
as a decided
And I am particularly informed detentionby of
the
young chief.
gentleman,
.who
evening the French frigate
plankill,
plunder,to ma ke
that, ayts, that
nat onehe
ecvaenn ibring
there w
an immediate rush upon Kororareka, toocameinw
ith av
iby.k.nu,baen, destroy.dcom m and
Commandant
avve
aryu d ,
22 guns,
distressed and damaged whaler, and the sight of that
ship has operated too powerfully upon the native ft ars to
permit them to put their plot into execution. Most kindly,
as soon as Captain Lavaud beard of our situation, he of-
fered to remain for our protection as long as we deemed
it necessary for oursecurity, although he had no other
. object whatever in remaining here. An address was sent
him, acknowledging our sense of his kindnecs, to which
we have received a most courteous reply. Compare his
conduct to that of our own men of war and officials; and
think especially of the remarkable interposition of God
for our preservation, when our natural protectors, on
whom we had every rightful claim, abandoned us to our
tate.

Of the unpopularity of Captain HonsoN and the