192 ADVEN'l-URE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. VUI. 
opinion and feeling, and it had been rumoured, much 
to the satisfaction of every one, that he was likely to 
succeed Captain Liardet as Company's Agent for New 
Plymouth. He was about the only Government officer 
that was ever admitted to the esteem and friendship of 
the select circles at Wellington. 
What was the surprise of some of these friends, 
when they afterwards read his unfeeling and partisan- 
like letters to head-quarters, and learned from good 
authority that he had abused the familiarity and pri- 
vileges of an intimate guest, to report many private 
conversations secretly to the same place ! 
Vain complaints were also made to the Police Magis- 
trate at this time of the destruction of the timber in 
the public belt by the natives, who were in the habit 
of supplying the town with firewood from this conve- 
nient locality. But though the notice which had 
appeared officially against this practice was enforced as 
to Europeans, the natives went on un reproved and 
unobstructed. This, too, was called a question which 
involved the decision of the title ; and so it must await 
the sentence of the Court of Claims. 
Is it surprising that the natives began to get em- 
boldened by the impunity or rather absolute indiffer- 
ence from the authorities which they found to attend 
acts that were denounced to them as illegal by the 
settlers ? They began to consider that there were two 
laws — one rigid and never infringed with impunity, 
but only existing in the fanciful imagination of the 
Whit« people of " Wide-awake ;" and another, loose, 
vague, and having nothing to do with the Maori, 
which was capriciously administered by the Kavmna, 
as the Police Magistrate was invariably called. 
A Mechanics' Institute was now in active operation 
at Wellington. 
