In reply to your letter of the 6th inst., let me first refer to one or two matters of minor importance, and tender my thanks for your statement that it will give you pleasure to grant me an interview for the purpose of personally explaining differences that have arisen, and to say that I purpose taking advantage of your offer, to this I will again refer; glad as I am to be able to do this even now, yet is it not, let me ask, rather suggestive of locking the stable door rafter the horse has gone? These personal explanations and personal examinations should, as I have so often advised, have taken place before rushing so recklessly into Court, even though you, later on, appeared anxious to discontinue, and rush as hurriedly out again. First, are you not slightly in error in regard to the increased rent from the Fleece? I had understood that the present tenant had to pay the Insurance and Rates previously charged to me, leaving the net balance £20, and not £4 as you estimate. The other details you elaborate with such care, appear to me not very pertinent to the main questions in difference between us, that is not so much whether the income from what you rightly call my "impoverished Estate" as it now stands, will bear any further strain being put upon it, but if it has, as my advisers understand the Court to affirm, been so impoverished by your acts of administration, (inadvertently or not, matters little to the question at issue,) if you should not hasten to repair the injury you have done, and atone as far as you can, for the misery your acts have entailed on us.

This phase of the question you entirely evade. The question of importance to me appears to be, does not the decision of the Court, so far, go to prove that you have paid liabilities of other beneficiaries from to our Estate ? that you have in fact defeated my father's intention and, and frustrated the purposes and plans of his will, and this too in many instances without,—and in some—directly against the advice of the Trustees' Solicitor, and in direct opposition to many of the best you were able to secure in the Colony—I refer to the opinions obtained by or for Trustees from Messrs George Cook, Haggitt, Prendergrast, Macassey, and James Smith, upon the main point of which there was a consensus and united opinion, agreeing with that now given by the Court here ? The advice of Mr. Smith, too, was urged upon the Trustees that they should, before paying the Bell Award, apply to the Court for guidance. About this Mr. Isaac has a letter confirming a previously expressed opinion to yourself that he advised this should be page 4 done, but this you would not accede to, and what has been the [unclear: result] Is it not that I have lost the use of my £500 contribution for [unclear: 1] years, and for the same period, interest on £600 wrongly taken [unclear: fra] residue to pay Bell, and some £2000 for 16 years, taken from [unclear: the] same fund, really for the same purpose ? But if you will permit [unclear: a] I will go into these details later on, only stating how astonished feel that the result of these investigations has extorted from you [unclear: se] one single word that can be construed into an expression of regret [unclear: in] the great wrong you have inflicted upon me, but only a jauntily [unclear: a] pressed opinion that if you have wronged us, that if our Estate [unclear: he] been deprived of a very large amount my father, and we too, [unclear: ins trance] ed you to administer in accordance with his bequests, that it may [unclear: en] us all these thousands and more to rectify your errors, and that [unclear: ti] Statute of Limitation anyhow will probably enable you to [unclear: perpet] these great wrongs. Is not this so? If it is, then it appears to [unclear: i] that conscience must most surely have overslept itself; a sense, wrong done, or it may be remorse, may some day give it a very [unclear: re] awakening. I must speak plainly, studied courtesy here would [unclear: he] come a mere function from which the meaning had died out.

Now I will try under guidance to look at these disputed [unclear: account] but why write me "that it will be useless to offer any explanation, whatever I say will be misconstrued." Any misconstruction, I [unclear: rey] has been all along impossible, as it has been just as absolutely [unclear: in] possible to abstract a particle of information from you at any [unclear: this] about anything connected with the Estate, or my own interest This has been my complaint from the first, and remains so still it would serve my purpose, I would give abundant proof, at the [unclear: sa] time, I would be glad of any proof that I have ever by word or [unclear: deo] tried to misconstrue you. My efforts have always been directed [unclear: to] exactly the reverse. The constantly recurring need for this has [unclear: mas] it almost second nature for me, and those you have so persistent wrecked. The second Schultz suit abundantly demonstrated this refer especially to this, as I have not the slightest doubt, that could see deep down into your mind, I should find the conviction [unclear: indehn] stamped there, that my father intended this Mill paddock for me, [unclear: i] just as surely that he did not give it to Elsie, you did that.

Now as to these wrong charges:—

1.—The Contributions. Well these were planned by you; [unclear: y] jealously claimed to have initiated the scheme to pay the "Bell [unclear: awa] damages in four equal proportions" and with, I believe, a [unclear: perfence] disinterested and honest motive, though strangely enough, it was direct opposition to all the many opinions you received. The [unclear: instant] tions of the will too wore just as strangely ignored and [unclear: contraves] I mean in this way, that the Eccles and Isaacs were by you made pay £800 each, as against the payments of the two others of each, and in direct violation of your proposal and their agreement) not this absolutely true ?

2.—Mrs Nelson £50, and Miss Jones £50. This is [unclear: char] against our Residue Estate, the reason now given for " Household [unclear: his] page 5 peases" appearing now, as the judgment affirms for the first time meaning I presume, that no book of yours divulges this fact.

3.—Mourning Costs, £95. This is charged to Residue Funds, and is so conspicuously wrong, that no comment is needed.

4.—Advertising Sale of Harbour Co's Boats. Why our funds should be expected to pay this charge appears inexplicable.

5—Fred Jones £40. This appears a good deal more excusable, but wrong nevertheless.

6-The Lighterage Co. Contract, and loss made by the "Duke of Edinburgh" on her venturo at the West Coast for Timber. These were beyond question legally objectionable, though the loss of the books now deprives us of the power to resist. Both were unauthorised and unknown to any single Trustee.

7—Fred'S and Will's Wool Claim, £368. This you stated to Mr. Isaac at your first interview about it, was doubtless the balance due after deducting their indebtedness. To me later, you said from information since before you, this appeared certainly to be the case, and that the award, if it could be produced, would, you felt sure, prove this to be so. The award was subsequently produced and proved exactly the reverse—The Court said my father was Fred's agent, and so sheltered you from legal liability—though for years past any wool from Tumai or Goodwood was always, as you know, placed to the credit of any indebtedness that might exist against my brothers—Let me apply this test—Had my father been living would the proceeds from this wool have been handed over to Fred or Will ? Then why should our Residue Funds have been made by you to pay this amount?

8.—Smith Anderson's B/C. These have been carefully analysed by a very competent legal accountant, who says that from the two bills comprising about 30 items, and amounting to about £460, he thinks £310 is improperly charged against these residue funds of ours. The costs for your appointment as managing Trustee at £600 or £700 per annum, and for which we battled in your interests so strenuously, and which subsequently was assented to by all, and for which too they all petitioned, is made a charge of £111 against our Estate. If others petitioned for your services to manage their Estate, why should we be made, and by yourself alone, to pay the costs of this accruing advantage to them and benefit to yourself.

9.—Hawksbury Estate. This property was divided and sold in six or seven farms, subsequently the conveyances to the purchasers were signed by yourself. It was found later on that in four of them the totals of the purchase money were wrongly estimated—three of these assented upon Mr Isaac's appeal for an adjustment of the mistakes, the other elected to hold to his legal rights and we lost £188 by your oversight. Your explanation was (we have your letter) that you were hurrying off to Oamaru by the "Maori," one of your own boats, and had "no time to examine these conveyances."

10.—The Fleece Hotel. While we were in Melbourne in 1877 the stables of this property wore burnt down. The buildings were insured for £100. You wrote us there informing us and asking if we wished page 6 them rebuilt. Mr Isaac immediately replied saying that's [unclear: raily] would be open, and the coaching days were therefore passing away [unclear: i] would be obviously a most unwise expenditure. We returned to [unclear: Dai] edin a few months later to find that they had been rebuilt under [unclear: you] instructions and that thereby £360 of our money had been [unclear: litenty] thrown away.

11.—The Island Farm. In 1878 Captain Fraser wired and wrote [unclear: ti] us in England enquiring if we would sell this property, and [unclear: mention] ing a very high figure. We replied by wire to him and to yourself, [unclear: i] a cost of £16, using the code of the Bank of New Zealand, [unclear: practically] accepting all his terms and urging the sale. I think we heard no more of this till our return a few months later, when we found the sale had not been made. We called upon the Erasers a few days after wishing to learn the cause. This was expressed to us in very forcible [unclear: language] by Captain Fraser himself in the presence of others who will bear [unclear: out] my statement. He then characterised your inaction, or, as be called your settled determination not to sell or be bothered about at all, though he was prepared to give such a figure as would have [unclear: i] creased my income at least £600 or £800 a year, as "a gross and en neglect of my interests." He said, so anxious was he and those [unclear: action] with him to purchase, that he called eight times upon you, and bad [unclear: i] last to give up in despair all hope of buying the property, some [unclear: tin] after two of the men here who composed part of another [unclear: syndic] composed for the same purpose of buying my Island Farm, and [unclear: where] decided to advance £5 per acre upon Captain Fraser's highest limit, [unclear: in] formed Mr Isaac that they only decided that any attempt to [unclear: purchase] when Captain Fraser explained to the myour attitude in this mattern useless, and thus I lost, through your neglect or indifference to my [unclear: interes] fully £8000 or £10,000. Am I exaggerating or writing one word this is not absolutely correct? Shortly after this Mr. Isaac, at my [unclear: guesd] endeavoured to get some explanation of your motives for inflicting [unclear: the] cruel wrong upon me. Your prompt reply was "The property [unclear: was] leased. I don't think we were called upon to disturb the lease, any way it was good enough for me." No further explanation of motives has as yet been attempted, though Mr Isaac wrote you full about it at my suggestion in April last year, and yet within the [unclear: ev] present view of this dark shadow and the judgment just given, wrote me a long letter yesterday devoting three quarters of it to [unclear: elsb] ate calculations to show that you must in justness to your Trust [unclear: ded] £3 per month from my already reduced income, and wondering at same time why you "can have fallen so low in my estimation." [unclear: le] me beg your reply to this: Had one unpleasant word ever [unclear: pas] between you and me ? Had I ever said or done one thing to annoy anger you in the remotest degree ? Had we not almost from children been warm and attached friends ? Were this not the case I might least have hunted about for a cause. Only last year you were [unclear: great] enough to write Mr Isaac of me in these terms:—"I have a [unclear: he] remembrance of her great personal kindness to me in the early and shall at any time gladly further her interests, &c."

12.—Shipping Shares. My 1/8 interests in these you (nominally) sold to Mr. Darling in May 1871, an offer of £1400 came from you on his behalf; subsequently £1426 was paid by you for him. In the Trustees first statement of accounts, the shipping interests are referred to as:—

(a.)	Assets at death 15th March as under. "Mrs. Isaac, May 1871, one-sixth interest in Harbour Property sold to Darling, £1425." In the later on it is referred to as :—
(b.)	"Proceeds of interest in gift of shares." In your letter to me dated 23rd February 1892, you wrote :—
(c.)	"The one-sixth share (of the Harbour Company) which fell to you under the will was sold to Mr. Darling in May 1871 for £1425." Let me for once follow in spirit your minute, cold calculations of yesterday's letter about the £3—the "Result" and the is. "Enterprise" purchased from profits in which I had an interest [unclear: a] year before the sale to Mr. Darling, were accordingly certainly not included in the property purchased by him—are they not, let me ask, my definitely excluded? Then, as yet, no account has been rendered to me of my interest in these boats, either of profits or the proceeds they realised. Your principal was not, by your own showing, the purchaser of these interests. But my objections to this sale have mother and more serious phase. The sale was made to enable you to carry out "your proposal" for four contributors to pay the "Bell award damages" &c. of about £2,600 in equal proportions. It was left to you to carry out this proposal which was assented to in an agreement signed by three, and by the fourth eventually, as the result of a toss-up with yourself. Was the agreement fairly and faithfully carried out, or did you not charge these four contributors with only 1500 each and then in direct contravention of the agreement charge [unclear: as] the Residuary Legatees, with the remaining £600, and upon which we have lost interest for 22 years? Is not this an absolutely correct statement? But I have still a more serious objection to this sale of myshares—Mr. Darling went to England shortly after we went there. The matter of this sale was several times referred to between Mr. Isaac and him, when he rather carefully, and certainly very definitely, impressed Mr. Isaac with the conviction that these shares were really not his. About this time Mr. Darling received from you a memo statement of some accounts between you—Mr. Isaac has a copy of this memo. In it you referred to your payment to him of £1400 for these shares. In a conversation between Mr. Isaac and Mr. Darling during his last visit here some six years ago, he again referred to this matter in a statement volunteered by himself and certainly without any thought in Mr. Isaac's mind that these after proceedings would be instituted. Let me now refer to the loss this sale has entailed on me. The purchase for and from Mr. Darling was made in the year 1871. After I sold, and during the years 1872-3-4, about £1650 was realised as profit on this share, and after some small addition to this in 1875, the share itself realised £1735. It matters little to me now who reaped this very substantial profit on this sacrifice of my shares. The cruel page 8 wrong that was done appears to me to lay in the fact that you, [unclear: my] trustee and warmly trusted friend, should have brought all this about and that if the proof Mr. Darling and you have furnished be not [unclear: mis] construed (I am afraid to use this word) then my great loss has been in an equal degree your gain. I know you will not hesitate to [unclear: correct] me if I am wrong. I say nothing about a trustee purchasing property, that is a mere legal question; the moral aspect is to my [unclear: ball] of thinking far more important, nor would I have said so much at [unclear: all] about this affair had not your letter invoked all your subtle power [unclear: one] figures to prove your absolute justness in reducing my income another £8 a month, and to further inform me that what you so aptly call [unclear: my] "impoverished estate," you intended to hand over to the Court, [unclear: wbos] agent would, you thought, give the poor emaciated thing another [unclear: deat] grip. What a swinging chorus this gives to the final chant of [unclear: the] administration of the past ?

13.—Interest Account "but to what else than Residue can [unclear: i] belong," said Judge Williams the other day, referring to the about £640 made by my father's funds before any legacies or interest on the was either paid or due. I add nothing except to state what [unclear: inter] surprise the discovery of this for 25 years unappropriated and only [unclear: an] disclosed fund has created.

14.—The Mill Paddock. Mr Isaac's letter to you of the [unclear: 22th] April last year about this matter is still unreplied to; I have, therefore little further to say about it. You knew, you must have known, [unclear: t] Fern Hill, on the evening of the 8th December, 1868, when my [unclear: father] directed Mr Cook, in your presence to write my name over the [unclear: Islam,] Hawksbury Estate, the Sandhills, the Township Sections [unclear: and] this Mill Paddock (all then lately my brother James' properties) [unclear: where] his intentions were, and when you filed your plan on the register copy of the will, showing accurately the boundaries of Elsie's [unclear: exi] 277 acres, giving only one Et. Road Line, which definitely [unclear: excli] this Mill Paddock from the devise to her, that she could have [unclear: r] earthly right to that property, but you gave it to her—my father [unclear: d] not—and I was thus deprived of £5000.

I will now epitomise these losses, occasioned, it has been said, your wrong administration, and if I am correct in stating this [unclear: the] will show at a glance what a deep, cruel injury you have inflicted [unclear: up] me and mine, and for some reason about which I have not as yet remotest conception. Our astonishment has all along been, and [unclear: s] is, that as these mistakes were one by one coming to light—I [unclear: prefer] believe' that none were intentionally made—you should not have [unclear: thou] it right and just to investigate them without delay in all their [unclear: vam] phases, and possibly with us attempt to remedy or rectify any [unclear: wr] that had been done without this costly ruinous litigation. If a [unclear: sim] desire had existed to do what was right, difficulties would certainly [unclear: had] quickly vanished, but have you not taken a course entirely in [unclear: oppos] to this, and when a mistake was discovered have practically said: [unclear: t] will acknowledge nothing, nor help in any way to test their [unclear: account] Get them if you can, and if you can then I intend to plead the [unclear: Staur] page 9 of Limitations, and so, if possible, perpetuate the wrong you have suffered."

If my strictures so grieve and surprise you, let me then say that [unclear: I] I could have forgiven almost all this unearned punishment, this [unclear: mdeserved] misery, this unmerited injury at your hands, the untold [unclear: umiliation] you have inflicted upon me, if you had not refused me the [unclear: mall] pittance of assistance I asked for to help me with my darling lying boy.

I have thus endeavoured to place before you as clearly as I am able, [unclear: mtters] which I think require the explanation you so kindly offer. [unclear: pardon] me if I ask to be allowed to apply one test to gauge the just and righteous administration of these matters in the past. Is it [unclear: posible] to conceive that had you been a Residuary Legatee in the Estate [unclear: and] Devise of the Island Farm, your adminstration would have been [unclear: be] same? Please give the question a calm and thoughtful answer [unclear: to] yourself I mean. I again repeat that to these acts of administrative must be some explanation that does not occur to us or to house who advise us. Believe me, I beg, when I assure you that [unclear: bothing] will give me such intense pleasure as to find that you can, as with a sponge, wipe out all these dark spots, and prove that I have [unclear: prossly] misjudged you, and that common justice to yourself demands [unclear: that] you should get the fullest credit for having administered my [unclear: islate] righteously, with a kindly thoughtful care, and with [unclear: evenanded] justice; and let me, in conclusion, further add that if I have [unclear: ronged] you, misconstrued your motives, or misjudged your acts, you have no cause to complain of the language I will use to make [unclear: you] amends.

I leave it to you to say if your written explanation first and an interview afterwards, or only a personal interview to explain will best it your wishes.