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An Epitome of Official Documents Relative to Native Affairs and Land Purchases in the North Island of New Zealand

No. 8. — Copy of a Despatch from Governor Hobson to the Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies

No. 8.
Copy of a Despatch from Governor Hobson to the Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Manukau.—Arrival of Scotch Immigrants per "Brilliant." Government House, Auckland, New Ulster, 13th November, 1841.

My Lord,—

I have the honour to inform your Lordship that a ship named the "Brilliant" arrived at the Port of Manukau on the 28th ultimo, bringing from Scotland twenty-seven emigrants, namely, sixteen men, eight women, and three children. The principal agent of the company applied to me for permission to appropriate to their use part of the land which had been purchased from the Natives by a Mr. Mitchel in 1835, and resold by his widow in 1839 to Major'Campbell, Mr. Roy, Captain Symonds, and others, who formed themselves into a company under" the title of "the Manukau Company." The lands in question are situate on the shores of the large estuary of the Manukau, and the extent, which is freely admitted, by the Natives to have been fairly purchased by Mr. Mitchel, may amount to thirty or forty thousand acres, which forms not one-third of the quantity contained in their deed.

The Manukau Company have sold in England, up to the date of the sailing of the "Brilliant," 8,500 acres of country land in one-hundred-acre sections, and eighty-five allotments of one-quarter acre each of town land, for which the sum of £9,350 has been received, and of that amount £5,250 had been reserved for emigration.

Having heard nothing from your Lordship respecting this company, I could make no appropriation of the land; but, to protect the settlers from the evils that would result from disappointment, I permitted the agent, with the advice of the Executive Council, a copy of whose minute I have the honour to enclose, to assign to the emigrants as they may arrive a settlement on the part of the harbour which has been measured out for a town, there to await your Lordship's directions.

Should your Lordship be pleased to allow them to form a town, I shall beg express directions to that effect, as Her Majesty's instructions specially forbid me to convey, grant, or demise any lands suited for such a purpose.

The formation of a settlement on the Manukau will be of essential benefit to this part of the country, and to the capital in particular; and I see no just objection to this object being effected through the intervention of this company in the same manner as the New Zealand Company have settled Port Nicholson. The port, which is by no means a bad one, will afford a more direct trade with the adjacent colonies; and the estuary, connected as it is by the Rivers "Waikato and Horotiu with the beautiful country of the "Waipa, will become the recipient of the produce of many hundred thousand acres of the finest agricultural land, which will readily find its way into Auckland.

I have, &c.,

W. Hobson.