Chaf. XIX. CAPT. FrrZROY AND THE LAND-CLAIMS. 529 
Captain Fitzroy ruled, I must always appear to a certain 
decree as a disgraced member of the society. However 
much I felt sure of the sympathy of the settlers, the 
pleasure of my friendly relations with the natives must 
necessarily be fatally impaired, when they heard that 
the highest authority in the colony had degraded me 
because I was their bitter enemy. 
I might, to be sure, have waited to be turned out 
of the Magistracy, and then have become one of the 
unfortunate men with a case at the Colonial Office in 
Downing-street. So I might have wasted months in 
the "room of sighs," while Mr. Dandeson Coates 
walked past daily to a tite-a-tete with the Secretary of 
State. 
I wrote and published a letter to the Governor, de- 
fending myself from his opprobrious charges, in order 
that I might still enjoy the respect of the settlers with 
whom I had spojit four happy years ; and I reminded 
his Excellency at the end of the letter, that his threat- 
ened course of prosecuting me for a libel on the natives 
would not have been compatible with English law or 
liberty. I got an acknowledgment of the receipt of 
this letter, but of course no further notice or answer ; 
and two days afterwards I embarked in a ship that 
was bound for Valparaiso. 
I left Cook's Strait with the conviction that the 
brave colony of Englishmen planted on its sunny shores 
had taken a firm root in the fertile soil ; that no blight, 
however blasting, would be able to wither it; that no 
cold winds would be able to kill its vigorous shoots ; 
that no grubbing would eradicate it ; that no cherish- 
ing of noxious weeds would be able to smother its 
ultimate growth into a flourishing and happy nation : 
so plentiful are the resources of the country, and those 
VOL. II. 2 M 
