1856, at which 107 acres were sold at an average price of £60 per acre, or £10 above the upset price. The regulations provided that applicants could apply for blocks not exceeding five acres, and that all blocks so applied for should be put up to auction at the upset price of £50 per acre. Subsequent sales were held at intervals as applications were received, and prices were more than maintained. Eventually the whole of the Canterbury Association liabilities were liquidated from this source, and it became necessary in January, 1866, to pass the Canterbury Debenture Fund Ordinance to dispose of the surplus from the fund as ordinary revenue.[1]
The new Governor, His Excellency Colonel Gore Browne, who had landed in Auckland the previous September, arrived in Lyttelton on December 31, 1855, with Mrs. Gore Browne, and met with a cordial reception. He was the first constitutional Governor of New Zealand with responsible ministers.
The Provincial Council presented a loyal address, but respectfully pointed out that Auckland was a most inconvenient site for the seat of His Excellency’s Government. If His Excellency read the papers, as no doubt he did, he must have seen that, however unanimous the Council might have been against Auckland as the seat of Government, there was some divergence of opinion about the propriety of raising such an issue in an address of welcome.
One of His Excellency’s first acts was to order the release of James Mackenzie, whose capture has already been recorded. We are not told the grounds on which Mackenzie was liberated, but probably the Government was not sorry to be relieved of the custody of a prisoner who had been somewhat elusive in his ways. One of the conditions of his release was that Mackenzie should
- ↑ Among the Provincial Council receipts on March 31, 1866, appears an amount, £4,430 0s. 3d., from Canterbury Association Debenture Fund Account.
