Chap. I. NEGOTIATIONS WITH GOVERNMENT. 15 
that a condition of the grant of a Charter would be 
the subscription by the Association of a joint-stock 
capital to be embarked in the undertaking. The sub- 
stance of his lordship's statements at the interview was 
afterwards reduced to writing in the form of a letter to 
Lord Durham. 
Lord Durham's answer* declines the offer of a 
charter, on the ground that the members of the Asso- 
ciation had invariably and publicly disclaimed all views 
of pecuniary speculation or interest, and were thereby, 
as well as by a continued disinclination to acquire 
any private concern in the national work which they 
sought to promote, entirely precluded from assenting 
to the proposed condition of raising a joint-stock 
capital. 
Early in 1838, a Select Committee of the House of 
Lords was, on the motion of Lord Devon, appointed 
to inquire into the state of New Zealand ; and it col- 
lected a mass of information which but too fully 
confirmed previous representations of the deplorable 
condition of the islands, and further exposed the neces- 
sity of subjecting the materials of disorder to the 
restraints of British law. 
In June of the same year, Mr. Francis Baring 
brought into the House of Commons the Bill which 
had been prepared, and which embodied the views 
of the Association as modified by suggestions which 
they had received from Lord Melbourne and Lord 
Howick. Lord Durham was now in Canada ; and 
though he had not left England without feeling as- 
sured that Mr. Baring's Bill would be supported in 
* Printed, together with Lord Glenelg's letter, in the ' Appendix 
to the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons 
on New Zealand in the year 1840/ page 148. 
