Chap. XII. PROCLAMATION OF LIEUT. SHORTLAND. 865 
" Given under my hands, at Port Nicholson, this 
" 27th day of August, 1840. 
" WiLLOUGHBY ShORTLAND, 
" Colonial Secretary and Chief Magistrate." 
There were some curious stories abroad as to the 
composition of this proclamation, and the numerous 
revisions of it before it was published. The Colonial 
Secretary had been distinguished, during the three 
months which he had now spent here, by a very large 
share of the same pomposity and burlesque hauteur 
which had so amused the spectators of Constable Cole's 
chivalrous expedition against the flags. This assump- 
tion of dignity was the more offensive to the educated 
part of the settlers, inasmuch as the dignitary was not 
troubled with too great a share of literary acquire- 
ments. Some people had, indeed, asserted that he 
could not write his own name ; but I believe the mis- 
take arose from his having designated himself in some 
correspondence as Colonial Seoetary. His general 
bearing, however, towards the colonists of all classes, 
had frequently obtained for him the title of Sancho 
Panza ; and he had been heard to say, on some occa- 
sion when the question of a separate Government for 
these settlements was mooted, that he should not 
mind being the Lieutenant-Governor over this part. 
The following extract from a letter written to Eng- 
land, by one of the leading men in Port Nicholson, 
shows that Lieutenant Shortland had not spared the 
attempt to injure the settlement more seriously : — 
" Mr. Shortland, during the short time he has been 
" here, has made himself universally disliked, by a sort 
" of quarter-deck assumption of authority, which, as you 
" may imagine, does not go down with the class of 
" people residing here ; but he is still more disliked on 
" account of many covert attempts to entice away the 
