Chap. Vin, MR. SPAIN, COMMISSIONER OF LAND-CLAIMS. 193 
On tlie 22nd, Mr. Spain, the long-expected Land 
Commissioner, had at length arrived. The ship in 
which he had come from England was wrecked at the 
Cape of Good Hope. 
After some delay there, he had reached Port Nichol- 
son in a small brig, on the 8th of December 1841, 
and had proceeded to Auckland five days afterwards. 
His long detention there remained unexplained ; but 
it was shrewdly surmised that he had expected to find 
himself sole Commissioner ; and had been at length 
sent down here only because his remonstrances, as to 
the association with him of the two Commissioners 
who had originally been appointed from Sydney, were 
disagreeable to the official gentlemen at the metropolis. 
Mr. Spain was accompanied by Mr. George Clarke, 
junior, a son of the Chief Protector of Aborigines, 
who had been appointed in January Sub-Protector of 
the Aborigines, and was deputed to watch their inte- 
rests, especially during the investigations before the 
Court. 
This seemed rather an unnecessary appointment ; for 
Mr. Halswell at Wellington, and Mr. Thompson at 
Nelson, were surely well capable of attending to their 
interests ; especially as, being both members of the 
English Bar, their legal knowledge would be of some 
avail to their clients before the tribunal of the Com- 
missioner. 
The appointment was therefore a kind of super- 
seding of these two gentlemen ; and sounded as 
though, being members of the Wellington commu- 
nity, they could not claim the confidence of the 
Auckland cabinet in a duty requiring strict integrity 
as well as great knowledge. 
The very name of Clarke, after the extraordinary 
exhibition in Te Aro pa, was disagreeable to the 
VOL. II. o 
