Chap. X. MR. DEANS MIGRATES TO PORT COOPER. 261 
tice of the Peace must consider his political opinions 
shackled by that of the Government under whom he 
held the appointment. The sorrow of the Nelson 
men for the death of a loved fellow-colonist, full of 
promise and honourable feeling, was sincerely shared 
by his numerous friends at Wellington. 
Early in September, Mr. Deans, who had formed 
one of the exploring party which travelled by land 
from Wellington to Taranaki about two years before, 
returned from a trip to the east coast of the Middle 
Island. He was so pleased with the district near Port 
Cooper, which had been described by Messrs. Daniell 
and Duppa, that he began making preparations for 
squatting there with a herd of cattle. He had been 
cultivating, in the interval, a patch of some 10 acres 
at a place called Okiwi, nearly abreast of Ward Island 
on the east shore of the harbour, but wished for a 
more extended field of operations. In the course of 
the next two months he disposed of his lease and irn.- 
provements, and fulfilled his intentions. He visited 
Port Nicholson towards the end of the next year, 
and spoke in raptures of the country where he had 
been living. He was in quiet possession of a vast tract 
of rich pasture, where he could ride about and see his 
cattle increase and prosper rapidly ; and he soon re- 
turned to his chosen location, disgusted with the 
tangled web of difficulties in which he found his old 
fellow-settlers still involved. 
It was at this time that Colonel Wakefield, in a 
letter to the Gazette, took upon himself to answer the 
repeated string of most unfounded charges, constantly 
made against him in the * Colonist,' the Crown Pro- 
secutor's newspaper. 
Among other specific charges, he was accused of 
having " made no effort for the adjustment of na- 
