Chap. VI. MR. EARP. 1^ 
Company, the anchorage and landing at New Ply- 
mouth were no longer hazardous. 
On the 24th of March a brig arrived from Auckland 
with a batch of news, and ]Mr. Earp as passenger. 
This gentleman had enacted a very prominent part 
in the Auckland performances ; which were so repul- 
sive by this time to the Auckland public, that the Go- 
vernment officers had been christened by their own 
newspaper — " A species of sucking Sultans, who ima- 
" gined themselves to be born with the power of 
" cutting off heads and tails at their sovereign plea- 
" sure." This scion of the press had existed one year, 
during which time no fewer than three editors had been 
successively engaged and dismissed by the tender-con- 
scienced proprietors. 
It appears that Mr. Earp had written some articles 
in this periodical in favour of his own conduct and 
against that of some other Members of Council. The 
authorship of the articles had been demanded and 
acknowledged ; the Council had passed a vote of want 
of confidence in Mr. Earp ; Mr. Earp had publicly 
retorted that the feeling was reciprocal, and had been 
supported by a public meeting ; and this had been fol- 
lowed up by a long series of correspondence between 
Mr. Earp, the editor, the lampooned Councillors, 
and their go-betweens, so excessively ridiculous in its 
origin, progress, and termination, that a gentleman, 
being one of the officers of the garrison, who had un- 
fortunately allowed himself to be mixed up in the 
menacing part of the negotiations, was at last obliged 
to withdraw from the entangled web of scribbling, and 
to declare that he would have nothing more whatever 
to do with the affair. 
Mr. Earp's opposition to the Land Claims Bill 
was directed against its manifest tendency to foster 
