IA 1 1840/870
National Archives Wellington
see Register Room

Partial transcript of an item from IA 1 1840/870


17 Mar 1846	New Zealand House: Rt. Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE, 
		Secretary of State for the Colonies, Signed: T. 
		C. HARRINGTON

"... The reservations and exceptions in question have 
reference to three distinct points namely, 1st The Native 
Reserves, 2nd The lands claimed by European purchasers; and 3rd 
The Native Cultivations.... 

With regard to the second point the claims of European 
purchasers, the case, as it respects Wellington, stands thus:- 
The lands in the neighbourhood of Port Nicholson having been 
purchased from the natives by Colonel WAKEFIELD, on the Company's 
behalf, in the year 1839, the Town of Wellington was laid out, 
and the several Allotments assigned to the parties who had 
purchased them from the Company, according to its published 
prospectus. 

Claims to some of these allotments having been preferred by other 
parties, on the ground of alleged prior purchases from the 
natives, considerable embarrassment was experienced; and to 
remedy this, in September 1841, Governor HOBSON, being then at 
Wellington, determined that the course most expedient for the 
Government to pursue, was to recognise and confirm the Title of 
the Company to the disputed allotments, but to require the 
Company to compensate the prior purchasers according to a scale 
to be fixed by a Local Ordinance.... 

and on the 25th of February 1842, an Ordinance was passed by the 
Local Legislature (5 Vict. Sess 2 No. 14) by the seventh section 
it was enacted that "compensation in other land shall be made to 
such claimant by the said Company according to such rate as to 
the Commissioner shall seem meet."...

This ordinance was disallowed by her Majesty... for reasons...
detailed in Lord Stanley's despatch of 19th December 1842 No. 87,
but the arrangement itself... was always considered as valid and
acted on as such by the Settlers....

The issue of grants to the private claimants has unfortunately
rendered a grant of the lands in question to the Company
difficult if not impracticable....

In that for Nelson the reservations of private European
claims instead of being specific... are couched in terms
comprising all which have been proved or may be proved 
hereafter... some limit ought to have been imposed to the time
within which they [the claims] were to be established.