No. 5.
Mr. C. A. Dillon to Mr. Fox.

Sir,—

I have the honor to refer you to my letter of the 12th instant, acknowledging the receipt of your despatch dated 9th April, 1849, on the subject of the selection of Port Cooper as the site for the proposed Canterbury Settlement.

In further reply to that letter, His Excellency the Governor-in-Chief has instructed me to inform you that, in reference to the first point raised in your letter of the 9th instant, relating to the claim of a French Company to Banks Peninsula, upon referring to Lord Stanley's Despatches, No. 7, of the 7th July, 1845, and No. 26, of the 15th August of the same year, he concurs with you in thinking that the arrangement which Lord Stanley sanctioned with the French Company was one of grace and favour only. He also finds that the total extent of land to which the Company are to receive a confirmatory Crown Grant is 30,000 acres, and that he should not under any circumstances think it reasonable that a single body of persons should be allowed to select so small an extent of land in such a manner as to occupy four excellent harbours, thereby virtually rendering valueless the immense tracts of country to which these harbours are the keys; and he should especially not deem it consistent with his duty to permit such an arrangement, when the French Company have already, in being permitted to occupy Akaroa, had conceded to them the principal parts of the water frontage of one of the finest harbours in New Zealand. But there appears, in the present instance, a peculiar reason for not permitting Port Cooper and Port Levy to be occupied by the same body of persons that occupy Akaroa; which is, that since the year 1845 this Government have anxiously sought some agent of the French Company to adjust their claim, but have not succeeded in finding one. His Excellency once took the trouble to visit Akaroa for the purpose of trying to bring this adjustment about, but could not find any person there authorized to act upon behalf of the Company. It would therefore, he thinks, be absurd to suppose that a foreign Company should be allowed for a period of more than four years to retard the settlement and occupation of a British Colony, by having kept open, for the purpose of their choosing 30,000 acres of land, four of the finest harbours in the Middle Island.

For these reasons His Excellency will direct the Lieutenant-Governor of New Munster to afford the Canterbury Association every assistance in his power in procuring such land as they may require at Port Cooper and Port Levy, reserving for the present Akaroa and Pigeon Bay for the French Company —it being understood that, if Her Majesty's Government should hereafter require the carrying out of such an arrangement, the French Company shall have the advantages secured to them which are offered on behalf of the New Zealand Company by Mr. Fox in the first proposition contained in his letter of the 9th April.

With reference to the second point contained in your letter of the 9th April, as to whether Banks Peninsula is included in the purchase recently made by the Government, His Excellency conceives that the Lieutenant-Governor of New Munster is the proper person to determine that point after consulting with Mr. Mantell. His Excellency's own intention was that all the Native claims to land, with the exception of the reserves made to them, should be extinguished by the payment of £2,000; but if the Lieutenant-Governor should think that some small payment should, Upon account of any misunderstanding, be still made to the Natives for the land now required at Port Cooper and Port Levy, I will direct him to consider the land so required as having been a reserve made upon behalf of the Natives, which they dispose of to the Government for the use of the new settlement about to be established.

As you and Mr. Thomas appear to regard it as essential that the assent of the Governor-in-Chief and that of the Bishop should be given to the site which you have selected, if His Lordship raises no objection to the site, with which His Excellency is unacquainted, His Excellency will not hesitate to give his assent to it.