The Chief Commissioner to Mr. Commissioner Johnson.

I have the honor to request that you will proceed to define the boundary of the Native Reserve in the Pukekohe Block.

The fact of your having been engaged in negotiating the purchase of the Pukekohe points you out as the best qualified of the officers of this Department to undertake the duty. In making the Pukekohe purchase, a large portion was set apart as a Native Reserve, the exact boundaries of which were not defined at the time, nor has anything been subsequently done to settle this question.

Land in that locality is now becoming very valuable; and, from what I can learn, several portions of the reserve have been alienated to Europeans, a circumstance which must give rise to difficulties and litigations, unless the question is definitely arranged without further delay.

It will be, of course, your duty to observe strictly the terms of the contract entered into between the Government and the Natives for the cession of the Pukekohe Block, and to assure the Natives an equal quantity of waste land to what you may now be able to induce them to relinquish, in order that the Government may fulfil its engagement with the European purchasers who have selected portions of this reserve.

The Provincial Government are sending a surveyor to accompany you on this service, and it is essential that the boundaries may now be so clearly defined in the presence of the Natives that no future disputes may arise out of this purchase.

Translation.

This agreement, entered into by Moses, Hone te Muhu, Pepene te Tihi, and all the Akitai Tribe, being the final settlement and giving up of all right and title to Pukekohe, or claim thereto whatsoever; the following being the boundaries agreed to:—Beginning at the post at Rangiwhiri, and going on in the line of Mr. Bailey on Ngapuketurua and Puketarakihi, entering [unclear: the orest] and on to Tutaenui, then going in a westerly direction until it cuts the northern boundary of Tirikohua, to the second hole, then going on to the West, entering the line coming from Ahu a te Ruarangi at the Manukau to the long road to Waikato,—is given up to the Queen of England and her heirs for ever: for this reason this agreement has been entered into on this the seventeenth day of June, in the year 1853.

That portion of Pukekohe called Te Awa nui o Taikehu is reserved for us, and is encircled by a line on the plan annexed. The payment to us for our consenting to these terms (above specified) is Two hundred pounds, now given into our hands, on this the seventeenth day of June, in the year 1853.