much building, and in employing an architect while the road to the plains was still incomplete. He fully recognised Captain Thomas’s good qualities, a “rough, vigorous, determined” man, capable of dealing with the classes of labour available, and his letter continued:—
“However, Thomas has so evidently done his best, has spared himself so little, and has evinced so much zeal, that I thought it would be cruel, as well as useless, to find fault with him, except in the mildest form for his errors in judgment.” Referring to Thomas’s new plan of surveying, he said: “It is very cheap, not more, he assures me, than five farthings an acre for the whole district, and very accurate and satisfactory. The colonial surveyors who began by disapproving have all read their recantation; and Captain Stokes,[1] of the ‘Acheron,’ a most competent judge, has told me that he ‘has seen nothing south of the Line’ to equal the maps Thomas has shown him. He has triangulated about 700,000 acres, and promises that by July the maps of at least 300,000 acres of the best agricultural land will have been completed in detail.”
In justice to Captain Thomas, it should be remembered that he was placed in a difficult position. At the time his credit of £20,000 was established, it was expected that the site of the settlement would be in the Wairarapa, where there would have been no Sumner Road or jetty to cost money. His choice of a site was undoubtedly wise, but involved expenditure beyond that contemplated. There were no telegrams then, and it would have taken at least eight months to obtain a remittance. His choice lay between stopping preparations for the settlers, who might arrive at any time, or accepting the advance offered
- ↑ Captain (afterwards Admiral) John Lort Stokes, of H.M.S. “Acheron,” was engaged in survey work on the New Zealand coast, November, 1848, to March, 1851. He had had eighteen years’ previous experience on the survey ship “Beagle,” rendered famous by Darwin’s “Voyage of a Naturalist Round the World.”
