Failure of the Colony.

The Directors of the Company were dissatisfied with the reports of matters concerning the settlement, and decided to send Mr. George Dundas, a director, and Mr. T. R. Preston, secretary of the Company, to visit the Auckland Islands and investigate affairs there. In December, 1851, Dundas and Preston, furnished with full powers to act as special commissioners arrived at Port Ross.

Briefly, as a result of the inquiry, page 28 page 29 Enderby resigned his position as chief commissioner to the Company, but he refused to leave his house, considering it to be his residence as Lieutenant Governor. However, the house was the property of the Company, and the Commissioners ordered some of the furniture to be removed from it, and later compelled Enderby to accompany them when they left the island on board the Black Dog. According to Enderby, they threatened to put him in irons if he refused to go with them.

Immediately on the arrival of the Black Dog at Wellington, Enderby brought an action for trespass against Messrs. Dundas and Preston, the case—which occupied three days—being heard before Mr. Justice Stephen. The Welling Independent, after briefly reporting the case, concluded: “The judge ordered that in both cases each party should pay their own costs.”

Enderby appealed to Sir George Grey. Sir George pitied him and showed him much kindness, but felt he had no jurisdiction in Enderby's quarrel with the commissioners.

Later, Enderby wrote to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, seeking redress, but without getting any satisfactory result, as the trouble was entirely between himself and the Company. The Company accused Enderby of mismanagement, while he complained that the mode of managing the Company's affairs and of conducting the fishery had not been carried out according to the plans he had submitted to the public.