Twenty-Second Report of the Court of Directors of the New Zealand Company.

The Correspondence with Her Majesty's Government, a Copy of which has been forwarded to each Proprietor of the Company, has put you in possession of the negotiations in which your Directors have been engaged on your behalf, or at least of that portion of them which has led to a practical result.

This Correspondence apprises you so fully of the general nature of the negotiations, and Lord Grey so clearly states the grounds on which he desires to enable the Company to renew its operations, and the means by which he proposes to carry that object into effect, that any comment upon the details is superfluous. In our reply to Lord Grey we have stated that the arrangements proposed appear to us to afford a fair prospect of success, notwithstanding the difficulties by which the later stages of your enterprise have been attended; that in this belief, we are prepared to devote page 2 ourselves to the continued exertions indispensable to the realisation of this prospect; and that, subject to your confirmation, we accede accordingly on your behalf to his Lordship's several proposals.

Of this step, knowing the spirit by which you are actuated, and of which we have witnessed such frequent and striking proofs, we look with confidence for your approval and ratification. Upon receiving these, we shall lose no time in adopting all necessary measures for the resumption of active colonisation in its original vigor; especially for the immediate and effective carrying out of the plan which has been so long in contemplation for the Settlement of Otago in connection with the Free Church of Scotland. In the qualities displayed, under impediments most disheartening, by the promoters of this undertaking, especially by your future Representative on the spot, Captain Cargill, and in their high moral and religious feeling, we recognise a sure pledge that in fixed principle, considerateness, courage, and every other element of progressive prosperity, the Colonists of this Settlement will in no degree fall behind the foremost of those by whom, through your instrumentality, they have been preceded.

The Annual Accounts will now be laid before you, and the usual business be gone through. Since your last Meeting, your constant friend and advocate Mr. Charles Buller has resigned his seat in your Direction on the occasion of his becoming a Member of Her page 3 Majesty's Government. We have thought it more conducive to your interests not to fill up the vacancy thus created, or that caused by the decease of your late lamented Governor, until the arrangements now under consideration shall be completed by receiving your approval and the sanction of Parliament. In consequence, four only of your Directors now retire by rotation, namely,

• Stewart Marjoribanks, Esq. M.P.
• John Abel Smith, Esq. M.P.
• Sir Ralph Howard, Bart. M.P. and,
• William Hutt, Esq. M.P.

All of whom we recommend for re-election.