Memorial from the Inhabitants of New Plymouth to Governor Fitzroy.

The memorial of the inhabitants of the Settlement of New Plymouth, in the District of Taranaki, New Zealand, showeth—

That your Excellency's memorialists, either under the purchase of land from the New Zealand Company, or as purchasers or cultivators of land from private parties, or dependent for employment on the cultivation of land, emigrated from England to this colony with a guarantee of title to the land so purchased, except as against the acts of Her Majesty's Government. That, shortly after the arrival of your Excellency's memorialists here, their right to such land, so bond fide purchased from the said Company or otherwise, was disputed by the aboriginal owners or alleged owners thereof, who evinced in the outset the usual feeble and indecisive opposition to civilized enterprise, but which not having unfortunately received any wholesome check, and, in addition, emboldened by an imaginary protection they presume to be exclusively given to them by Her Majesty's Government, they have not not only menaced, and continue to menace, by threats of violence, the location of many settlers on their land, but have, in one instance, destroyed by fire the dwelling of a European in this settlement,. and have, in addition, very recently assembled to the number of fifty, armed in different ways, to stop the New Zealand Company's servants in their prosecution of a road in this district. That your Excellency's memorialists beg most particularly to urge on your Excellency the important fact that the Natives extend their interference to Europeans in this district desirous of settling on uncultivated ground and, in many instances, heavily-timbered land, and also on fern land, which is never cultivated by the Natives, and that therefore there is not the extenuating circumstance of the soil having been in possession of, or in present or contemplated future cultivation by, the Native claimants. That your Excellency's memorialists have applied to Her Majesty's Representative in this settlement for assistance, to enable your memorialists to settle on their land, but, to their surprise, they were informed that such aid could not be afforded them. That your Excellency's memorialists, with all respect for and due deference to the acts of his late Excellency the Officer Administering the Government, beg to state that, since the issuing by him of a Proclamation, bearing date the 12th June, 1843, and having reference to the land disputes, the Natives have not only greatly increased their opposition to your Excellency's memorialists, but have also laid claim to, and in some instances seized on, land in the possession of and in cultivation by Europeans in this settlement. That the settlement of New Plymouth, from its nature and locality, is essentially agricultural, and that, as nearly the whole of your Excellency's memorialists rely on their land for subsistence, and eventual prosperity, the steady, unrestrained, and increasing opposition of the Natives to the cultivation of, and, in many instances, to the mere location of Europeans on the land in question is severely felt by your memorialists, whom a continuance of it will involve in inextricable ruin.

Your Excellency's memorialists, therefore, entirely resting their hopes and prospects of the future on their appeal to British protection, respectfully and earnestly request that your Excellency will devise speedy measures for the security and tranquillity of Her Majesty's subjects in this settlement from the aborigines of the soil, who, in most instances, not only deny the right of your memorialists to the land so purchased, but openly threaten infraction of their will with arson and other alarming crimes; endangering the perfect understanding which should be reciprocated by the two races, compromising the security of property, and even personal safety, and fatal to the interests of a people dependent on peaceful colonization, whose present and future interests are so closely interwoven with the land they are effectually forbidden to cultivate. And your Excellency's memorialists, as in duty bound, will ever pray.