(G.) Page 14.

Kingi's Personal Services to the Government.

The Governor endeavours to cast a slur upon Kingi's personal character"He has no sort of influence with me or the Colonial Government," he writes to Lord Stanley, in June, 1858; "and we believe him to be an infamous character." (Fox, p. 19; see also Despatch to the Duke of Newcastle, June 28, 1860.)

The point is not material, for it cannot affect the question of his tribal or personal rights. It is, however, satisfactorily proved that King's loyalty has been stedfast, and his assistance of sterling value in times of imminent peril. Archdeacon Hadfield's testimony on this point is decisive:—" I have known him for twenty years. When the first collision took place in the year 1843, between the English and the natives, under the command of Te Rauparaha tnd Te Rangihaeata at Wairau, the latter were elated with their success, and proposed to plunder and destroy the town of Wellington. Great efforts were for some days made to organise a force for the purpose. The strength of the local government was ascertained. The time required to obtain troops from the neighbouring colonies was nicely calculated. But the attempt was baffled. In a work published last year in London, and written by Mr. Swainson, the late Attorney-General of the colony, the safety of Wellington at that time is attributed to my influence and exertions. I received the thanks of the Governor of the Colony. I was then residing about forty miles from Wellington, at Waikaure, a native Pa, of which William King was the chief. He had about a thousand well armed men who obeyed his orders. I attribute to that chiefs loyalty alone the failure of Te Rauparaha and Te Ranghiaeata's schemes.

"Again in the year 1846 when Te Rangihaeata was in arms against the Government in the neighbourhood of Wellington, William King, though a near relation of that chief, evinced his loyalty to the Crown, not only by a steady resistance to all the solicitations of that chief, but by actually taking up arms against him. He captured with two exceptions the only prisoners taken during the war, and in fact hastened its conclusion." (Archdeac. Hadfield—Letter to the Duke of Newcastle, p. 22).

When contemplating his return to the Waitara in 1847, he would not do so "by stealth," observing "that the Ngatiawa tribe had always been friendly to the Europeans, and it was their desire to continue on the same amicable terms they have hitherto been." (Parl. Papers, Feb. 1848, p. 17, and supra, p. 12.)