born in 1814. If he had been specially destined for the leadership of the Canterbury settlement it would have been difficult to find for him a better preparation than that which he actually underwent. The son of an Irish landed proprietor, he must have had early opportunities of gaining knowledge of land and its employment. After receiving a liberal education at Harrow and Christ Church (Oxford), he read for the Irish Bar, and was called in 1839. Three years later, he visited Canada, and became extremely interested in colonial matters, contributing articles to various papers, from which it would be interesting to quote if space permitted. From his letters to C. B. Adderley, printed by Savill Edwards, London, 1863, can be traced the course of events by which his subsequent career was inspired. These letters cover the period of his life’s work between 1839 and 1861, and are written quite unreservedly, with evidently no thought of their publication. They are the letters of one intimate friend to another, frank and outspoken at times to a singular degree. They give a lurid picture of Ireland in 1843, with famine threatened, anarchy rampant, and Godley and his father under protection against assassination. By 1846 matters were even worse, and practically the whole labouring population was employed on relief works. Next year, Mr. Godley stood for Parliament for his native county, Leitrim, and was defeated. Writing on September 24 of that year (1847), he anticipated frightful mortality amongst the poor, and the disorganisation of society in the attempt to collect rales. This letter contains a passage which shows whither his thoughts were already trending. “A gigantic immigration scheme,” we read, “would have been the only alternative.” It was at this time that his meeting with Edward Gibbon Wakefield took place.
The New Zealand Company was then in a bad way, fast drifting indeed towards insolvency. Mr. Wake-
