NEW ZEALAND. CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE WESLEYAN MISSIONARY COMMITTEE AND THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EARL GREY, Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, ON THE APPREHENDED INFRINGEMENT OF THE TREATY OF WAITANG I: AS PUBLISHED IN THE REPORT OF THE WESLEYAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY, LONDON. S 850.1251 + 27 CORRESPONDENCE, &c. I. Copy of a Letter from the Wesleyan Missionary Committee to the Right Honourable Earl Grey. WESLEYAN MISSION-HOUSE, Bishopsgate-Street-Within, February 23rd, 1848. MY LORD, The Committee to whom is entrusted the management of the Foreign Missions of the Wesleyan Society, most respectfully request permision to express to your Lordship the deep solicitude which has been awakened in their minds, by the agitation of the question respecting the correct interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi,* upon which the Colony of New Zealand is based. * COPY OF THE TREATY OF WAITANGI:-From "Copies or Extracts of Correspondence relative to New Zealand, &c., ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 11th May, 1841." "Her Majesty, Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, regarding with Her royal favour the Native Chiefs and Tribes of New Zealand, and anxious to protect their just rights and property, and to secure to them the enjoyment of peace and good order, has deemed it necessary, in consequence of the great number of Her Majesty's subjects who have already settled in New Zealand, and the rapid extension of emigration, both from Europe and Australia, which is still in progress, to constitute and appoint a functionary properly authorized to treat with the Aborigines of New Zealand for the recognition of Her Majesty's sovereign authority over the whole or any part of those Islands. Her Majesty, therefore, being desirous to establish a settled form of civil Government, with a view to avert the evil consequences which must result from the absence of the necessary laws and institutions, alike to the Native population and to Her subjects, has been graciously pleased to empower and authorize me, William Hobson, a Captain in Her Majesty's Royal Navy, Consul and Lieutenant-Governor over such parts of New Zealand as may be, or hereafter shall be, ceded to Her Majesty, to invite the confederated and independent Chiefs of New Zealand to concur in the following articles and conditions: "Article the First.-The Chiefs of the Confederation of the United Tribes of New Zealand, and the separate and independent Chiefs who have not become Members of the Confederation, cede to Her Majesty the Queen of England, absolutely, and without reservation, all the rights and powers of sovereignty which the said Confederation or individual Chiefs respectively exercise or possess, |