488 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEAXAND. Chap. XVIII. 
Nor was this all — the Police Magistrate alluded to 
was no other than Mr. Murphy. Up to the time when 
he had to resign his office in January 1843, he had 
not taken the slightest step towards furnishing the 
plan or estimate, and the letter of the Governor alluded 
to had been lying for months unheeded on his table. 
Colonel Wakefield often pressed him to proceed in 
the business. I have often urged him to get the plan 
and estimate made at once. But he invariably shuffled 
it off with various excuses ; treating it as " of no 
" consequence," or " totally out of his province;" or 
declaring that "he did not know to whom he could 
** apply for the requisite information." His successors 
in the office probably lost all traces of the paper. At 
any rate, nothing more was ever heard of the light- 
house; and even in October 1844, Captain Fitzroy 
discouraged the idea, and had some thoughts of erecting 
a beacon at the heads instead, which will be of no sort 
of use in the dark. This had been done long before 
by private subscription, at the risk of having the 
beacons pulled down or injured because not protected 
or authorized by law. The Corporation had never, up 
to the time of their dissolution^ possessed funds to a 
larger amount than 371/. ; a sum quite inadequate to 
the building a lighthouse, and required moreover for 
other purposes. 
The proposal for erecting a lighthouse at Port 
Nicholson was thus fairly smothered, like the Native 
Reserves, by the Colonial Office and the local Govern- 
ment : Lord Stjinley taking care that it should have 
to go at least three times the distance between England 
and New Zealand, besides four times that between 
Auckland and Port Nicholson ; and the local officers 
taking care that it should faint on the way : Lord 
Stanley preventing the possibility of the thing being 
