Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/70

That your memorialist has at times been resident on the land so purchased, and has also fenced and cultivated a portion thereof, and also established and worked a whaling station thereon. That the chiefs of and in that neighborhood have been always, and are now, ready and willing to admit the sale of such lands to your memorialist, and his rightful claim thereto.

That on or about the month of April, 1840, your memorialist caused to be addressed a statement to the Colonial ecretary for the Colony of New South Wales, and forwarded the same to Sydney in the same month, in which statement his claim to the said lands was set forth, agreeably with the provisions of a certain Act of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, empowering the Governor of that Colony to appoint a Commission to examine and report on claims to grants of land in New Zealand.

That some time afterwards, viz., about November, 1842, your memorialist was informed by the Chief Police Magistrate of Akaroa that your memorialist’s claim was not among the gazetted claims to land published at Auckland, whereupon your memorialist immediately wrote to the Colonial Secretary at Auckland a letter setting forth his claim, together with a copy of the statement which had been addressed to the Secretary of New South Wales.

That your memorialist received a reply thereto, stating that the claim had not been received in the Colonial Secretary’s office, and inviting him to produce any proof in his power that the letter to the Colonial Secretary of New South Wales was actually forwarded at the date specified.

That your memorialist with such invitation obtained a declaration from one Alfred Roberts (the person who wrote the statement to the Colonial Secretary of New South Wales setting forth his