Enclosure 3 in No. 81.
The Hon. W. B. D. Mantell to His Excellency the Governor of New Zealand.

Sir,—

At the request of John Topi Patuki, I do myself the honor of enclosing a petition addressed to Her Majesty the Queen, by him, as chief of the Ngaitahu and Ngatimamoe Tribe, and of respectfully requesting your Excellency to forward that petition to the Right Hon. the Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies.

The petitioner prays Her Majesty to exert her royal authority to prevent certain claims of his tribe from being extinguished or prejudiced by legislation in the General Assembly of this Colony, those claims being, he submits, of a nature which can and should be dealt with by the judicial tribunals of the Empire.

In the endeavour to restrict the allegations of his petition to such only as seemed absolutely needful to show a primâ facie claim to the consideration prayed for, a clerical omission has unfortunately occurred in the third line of the seventh paragraph of his second page. The following statement should have there appeared between the words "cancelled" and "the Governor:"—"without any warning to your petitioner's tribe of the intention so to convey this reserve, and without any opportunity having been afforded to them of being heard in defence of their claim thereto before the Executive Council or the Supreme Court."

As the present appeal of this chief to Her Majesty is designed only to pray for her gracious interposition in order to restrain the action of the Legislature to its proper functions, and to maintain on behalf of that race of Her Majesty's subjects in this Colony which is not represented in its Legislature whatever protection of their rights and interests the courts of the country can afford, it has not been thought necessary there in to advert to the injustice of the Provincial Government's demand for the reserve in question—to the history of the Bill now before the Legislature—or to its repugnance to principles already affirmed during the present Session in "The Private Estates Bills Bill."

I am so unwilling that the accidental omission above noted should in the least weaken whatever force this petition may possess, that I venture respectfully but earnestly to pray your Excellency to forward a copy of this letter to the Right Hon. the Secretary of State for the Colonies with the enclosed petition.