poses in connection with the Church of England. As it is intended that this colony should be on a larger scale than any hitherto adopted by the Company, the plan of it will probably not be ripe for publication till next year.” Instructions, it was added, had been sent to the Company's agents in New Zealand to lose no time in selecting the sites of both settlements. It was intended that the New Edinburgh Settlement should be first established, and for the second time Colonel Wakefield’s thoughts turned to the Port Cooper Plains as a possible site. The selection was entrusted to Mr. Frederick Tuckett, a surveyor, and one of the survivors of the Wairau Massacre. Mr. Tuckett had the advantage of considerable experience as chief surveyor in laying out the Nelson Settlement. He was a member of the “Society of Friends,” and a man of great personality and force of character. The instructions given him were to examine not only Port Cooper, but also the remainder of the eastern coast of the South Island, and in the end, he passed over the Port Cooper site in favour of the present site of Dunedin. The objection to Port Cooper as a site for the Nelson Settlement had been simply due to the obstinacy of Lieutenant-Governor Hobson, but it is more difficult to understand the failure of an experienced surveyor, such as Mr. Tuckett undoubtedly was, to grasp the possibilities which have since been realised in the Canterbury Plains.
Mr. Tuckett was accompanied in that expedition by Dr. (afterwards Sir David) Monro, who kept a diary which is now of double interest, first as affording an insight into the reasons for which the Port Cooper site was rejected, and, secondly, as presenting, perhaps, the earliest and most graphic description of the Canterbury Plains.
Dr. Monro sailed from Nelson in the “Deborah,” Captain Wing, on Sunday, March 31, 1844, and called in next day at Port Nicholson to take Mr. Tuckett on board. The diary records: “Pt. Nicholson weather,
