and most valuable public objects which the New Constitution is calculated to effect, may be seriously impeded, or even for a time entirely frustrated, by these mutual feelings of animosity and distrust which have arisen out of past collisions; and we pray of your Excellency to believe that it is our most earnest wish to see all past differences and angry party feelings buried in oblivion, to the end that your Excellency, as the Representative of the Crown, and those who enjoy the confidence of the people, may sincerely concur and co-operate, with a view to the future alone, in the task of carrying into effect the purposes of the Crown and the British Parliament, in bestowing upon the people of this country the inestimable boon of Provincial and General Representative Institutions. We are in hopes that these assurances may be acceptable to your Excellency, and that they may have some weight with the popular leaders in other parts of New Zealand, where the heats and animosities to which we have alluded have taken deeper root than amongst ourselves.
“We could have wished that the inhabitants of the Canterbury Settlement were able to convey to your Excellency without delay some expression of our apprehension and our desires, in the more weighty form of resolutions passed at public meetings; and we have only resorted to the less eligible means of an address signed by those who may concur in its objects, in order not to lose the early opportunity of communication with Wellington which is afforded by the sailing of the ‘Minerva.’
“We have the honour to be, Sir,
“Your Excellency’s most obedient, humble servants,
“Canterbury, February 22, 1853.”
His Excellency’s reply to this quaintly worded olive branch was sent to Captain Simeon, R.M., by the Civil Secretary, accompanied by a request that he would have
