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A compendium of official documents relative to native affairs in the South Island, Volume One.

No. 4. — Despatch from Earl Grey to Governor Grey

page 78

No. 4.
Despatch from Earl Grey to Governor Grey.

Downing Street, 30th November, 1848.

Sir,—

Referring to my Despatch No. 69, of the 17th August last, in which I requested you to report any steps which might have been taken with the view of assigning to the Nanto-Bordelaise Company a tract of 30,000 acres, which they are to have in Banks Peninsula, I have the honor to transmit to you the enclosed copy of a letter from the New Zealand Company, and of the reply which I have caused to be returned to them respecting the present position of the French Company's claim.

I doubt not that you will quite agree, as I do, in the importance of endeavouring to bring this matter to an early conclusion. You will perceive by the enclosures, that after the full consideration which the case underwent at a time when the interests of the Nanto-Bordelaise Company were ably represented in this country by a gentleman whom they had fully empowered to act on their behalf, and after the result, by which it was mutually agreed that the grant of a tract of 30,000 acres would liberally meet their claims, I think that the Government could not be called upon to entertain for a moment any pretension to receive a larger quantity of land. On the contrary, I have to instruct you that the question of quantity cannot be reopened. It only remains therefore to select, as soon as may be possible, a tract containing in one block 30,000 acres, to which it may be in the power of the Government to grant a title to the Nanto-Bordelaise Company. It will be within your recollection that M. Belligny was in 1845 named as the agent for attending to their interests on the spot in settling the business. But in the event of his being absent, or for any other reason unable to perform his part in the transaction, I have to authorize you, unless there should exist any objection on the spot of which I am unaware, to proceed to make a selection of the tract for the Company, on the basis of the suggestions contained in the concluding paragraphs of the enclosed letter from Mr. Harrington.

I have, &c.,

Grey.

Governor Grey, New Zealand.