In a letter of Mr. Blaine, Secretary of State, to Mr. Webster, dated "Department of State, Washington, 21st June, 1881," he says: "I may state generally, however, that upon a very thorough examination of the case recently made by an officer of the Department charged with such duties, it is found that no claim was directly presented by you, or on your behalf. for indemnity, until September, 1858." The entire letter is copied in Appendix 3 to this report.

These two statements are directly in opposition to each other. Without attempting to account for the apparent discrepancy, it is clear that the statement last made is true, because, in the nature of things, the statement made in 1859 could not be true. Mr. Everett did not present or urge any claim of Mr. Webster for indemnity for lands taken from him, nor did Lord Aberdeen make allusion to any claim for compensation. The question whether the lands would be taken from Webster was still open in December, 1813; and under the orders as announced to Mr. Everett by Lord Aberdeen in February, 1843, the obstruction to a confirmation of Webster's title, of which Mr. Everett complained, had been removed, as to the price of 5s. per acre, as far back as March, 1841.

It is not true, as a matter of fact, that Webster, in 1841, had presented any claim for indemnity against the British Government, nor is it true that " the archives of this (the United States) Government record this claim to have been presented in different guise in 1841, and to have then received the prompt action of the United States." This statement is not supported, but is refuted, by "archives of the Government."

The injustice done Mr. Webster by this untrue representation of his conduct, whoever may have inflicted it, should be now removed. He should have a fair opportunity to have his claim against Great Britain considered on its merits, without the embarrassment of a false assertion that he had abandoned his right to these lands, and had claimed compensation for them in money, before the British authorities had proceeded to finally deny or to ignore his rights. By that report the Senate was misled as to the conduct and the rights of Mr. Webster, and it is due to him that this should appear on its records, and that this embarrassment should be removed.

Your committee are of opinion that Mr. Webster's right to claim indemnity for the lands, purchased in good faith from the native chiefs, is clearly established as being just and complete; and their final sequestration and sale by the British Government, which occurred in 1845, or later, gives him the right to ask the intervention of his government. The British Government has not presented in its correspondence on this subject, or in any order concerning it, that has been communicated to William Webster or his counsel, or to the United

States, any finding of the commission or other official authority of any fact tending to show that the conveyances made to him by the native chiefs were not made in good faith and for a valuable consideration before the treaty of the 6th February, 1840.

That Government, so far as your committee are informed, has never impeached the claim of Mr. Webster on any ground that takes it out of the influence of the express declaration of Lord Aberdeen to Mr. Everett, "that where aliens had acquired land from the chiefs prior to the proclamation of the Queen's sovereignty there, and that fact was undisputed, the claims should be acknowledged." Nor has any fact been stated by that Government which tends to include the claim of Mr. Webster in the category "that, where a doubt arose whether the alien made a bona fide purchase of the land, the settler should be treated as any British subject, and his claim disposed of accordingly."

British subjects now hold lands under the same conveyances made to him, confirmed by the commission, as to such subjects, which have been treated as if they had no existence when invoked in support of Mr. Webster's rights.

For the further information of the Senate on this subject, your committee submit the papers found in appendices to this report, numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4.

These papers give the reports of committees of Congress, the correspondence with and arguments of counsel submitted to the home Government in Great Britain, the opinion of the law officer of the Department of State, and the affidavit of Mr. Ranulph Dacre, all of which give strong support to the rights claimed by Mr. Webster.

Your committee recommend the adoption of the following resolutions:

Resolved by the Senate, That after due examination of the matters presented in the petition of William Webster, and the evidence brought to their attention in support of his claim for indemnity from the British Government for lands in New Zealand purchased by him in good faith from native chiefs, and duly conveyed to him before the Government of Great Britain acquired the sovereignty over that country by a treaty made with the said chiefs, the Senate of the United States consider that said claim for indemnity is founded in justice, and deserves the cognizance and support of the Government of the United States. And that said claim, as a claim for money indemnity, was not presented by the United States to Great Britain prior to September, 1858.

Resolved, That the President is requested to take such measures as, in his opinion, may be proper to secure to William Webster a just settlement and final adjustment of his claim against Great Britain, growing out of the loss of the lands and other property in New Zealand, of which he has been deprived by the act or consent of the British Government, and to which he had acquired a title under purchases and deeds of conveyance from the native chiefs prior to the 6th February, 1840, and prior to any right of Great Britain to said islands. (Appendices not printed herein.)

[Senate Report. No. 1736. Forty-ninth Congress, second session.]

Mr. Morgan, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, submitted the following report (to accompany petition of William Webster):

The Committee on Foreign Relations, to whom was referred the petition of William Webster, a citizen of the United States, relating to his claim against the Government of Great Britain, respectfully report:

The petition discloses and the evidence found in public records heretofore submitted to Congress and to the Department of State supports the claim of William Webster to indemnity for the seizure and sale, under the authority and direction of the British Government, of certain large bodies of land in New Zealand, the rightful property of said Webster.

The several tracts of land claimed by the petitioner are designated by red lines drawn on the chart found in Appendix No. 1, which accompanies this report, and are estimated as containing 500,000 acres.

William Webster claims these several tracts of land under regular deeds of conveyance to him. made by several New Zealand chiefs exercising full sover. eign powers over their respective tribes at the time and long prior to the dates of the conveyances.

The execution of these deeds has been proven before a commission, appointed by the British Crown, which sat at Auckland. The boundaries of Webster's

lands are marked upon the chart found in Appendix No. 1 to this report, and each tract is numbered and lettered.

Mr. Webster produced his deeds before said commission and the chiefs who executed the same, and they established, as did other witnesses, the execution of the deeds to the lands claimed by him and that he paid the chiefs and tribes a consideration for the purchase amounting, in the aggregate, to more than $70,000.

Some of these deeds have been lost, without the fault of Mr. Webster, and others, possibly all of them, are of record in some form among the archives of the commission. Neither the government of Great Britain or New Zealand has ever disputed the execution of these deeds, or their consideration, or that they were made by tribal chiefs who had full sovereignty at the time, within the limits of their respective territorial dominions.

So the committee assume, with confidence, that there was no flaw in the title of Mr. Webster to the lands described in these conveyances, and that these chiefs could make valid conveyances of them, whether by deed to private owners, or by treaty to the British Government, or to any other power.

All the conveyances to Webster are of older date by several years than any claim of Great Britain to the ownership of any lands in New Zealand, or to soyereignty and dominion over that country. They were made before Great Britain attempted to colonize that country with her subjects, or to assert any ownership of lands in those islands, either by treaty or by force. The islands of New Zealand at the time these deeds were made to Webster, and at the time that Great Britain by treaty acquired the sovereignty of the country (on the 6th February, 1840), were under the sovereignty, dominion, and government of a number of the tribes of New Zealand, each of them having territorial boundaries distinctly ascertained and guarded carefully against intrusion by other tribes. They were a warlike people, and were frequently embroiled in conflicts about their respective tribal boundaries, in respect of which they were very jealous of each other.

When Great Britain determined to acquire dominion over New Zealand by treaty, and to acquire that possession by agreement, and not by force, she could find no sovereign there with whom to treat respecting the entire country, but made her treaty with the chiefs of each tribe.

Great Britain, in gaining the sovereignty of the country and aqualified ownership in the lands, did precisely what Webster had done long before in getting a title to his lands, and that was to go to each chief of each tribe and negotiate with him as a sovereign ruler within the limits of his own territory. The same chiefs that had conveyed these lands to Webster, for a valuable consideration, afterwards conveyed to Great Britain a partial interest in their public lands and political dominion over them, as sovereign, in consideration of the blessings that they would receive in becoming British subjects, as is stated in the third article of the treaty of February 6, 1840.

That treaty is copied on pages 6 and 7 of Appendix No. 1. It is the sole basis of any right of dominion, or property, that the British Government has ever acquired in those islands. Whatever may have been the previous designs of that Government as to the acquisition of New Zealand by conquest, the treaty of February 6, 1840, placed the chiefs of the tribes, respectively, on the footing of sovereign rulers and recognized their full right to treat as such with Great Britain or any other power. Proceeding in this way to gain dominion over New Zealand, Great Britain avoided all questions of prior occupancy by citizens of other countries, and committed itself to the duty of treating them with justice. In 1839 Great Britain empowered Capt. Hobson "to invite the confederated and independent chiefs of New Zealand to concur in the following articles and conditions." The New Zealanders were reconciled to British sovereignty only when that Government, in the treaty, confirmed and guarantied "to the chiefs and tribes of New Zealand, and to the respective families and individuals thereof, the full, exclusive, and undisturbed possession of their lands and estates, forests, fisheries, and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess, so long as it is their wish and desire to retain the same in their possession." The only qualifications of this otherwise unlimited right of ownership in chiefs, tribes, and private owners is, that when any of them shall desire to dispose of or alienate their possessions, the chiefs yield "to her Majesty the exclusive right of preemption over such lands" at prices to be fixed by agreement.

It would be difficult to select language that would more clearly import a perport a perfect ownership in all the soil of New Zealand, in the chiefs, the people as tribes, and as private owners, than that which is guarantied in the treaty itself. Such a title, afterwards acquired by any person in Great Britain, in

lands to which he had no title at the time he had previously attempted to convey the land to another, would, by relation and estoppel, accrue to such grantee the moment that he got such a deed, or a treaty had granted the title to him. These chiefs had conveyed these lands to Mr. Webster before the date of the treaty. As no exception is made in the treaty of the rights of the persons to whom these prior conveyances had been made, their titles are necessarily confirmed by its terms, unless they were obtained by fraud. So that Mr. Webster, if he had no other claim to the land, would be entitled, under the laws of England, to the benefit of the express grant in this treaty, made to the chiefs from whom he had purchased and who had previously conveyed the land to him.

But his titles were of equal dignity with that afterwards acquired by Great Britain, as it relates to the sovereign power from which they are derived. They are of equal validity and force with the title of Great Britain, as it relates to the fact of the prior ownership of the lands by the chiefs and tribes. They are of equal integrity, as it relates to the consideration paid for these lands, and of as much greater moral value, as a voluntary contract stands above one made under coercion, in the estimation of all civilized people.

Mr. Webster's title came first, in point of time, from the same sovereign power that Great Britain expressly recognizes in this treaty, and it was purchased for value, from people whom he had been at great expense and labor to benefit, and who, even in their savage s ate, appreciated and were grateful for his kindness. This treaty was preceded by British royal proclamations, prepared and issued just before the treaty was signed. It was under these proclamations that the rights of William Webster and other American citizens in New Zealand were afterwards stricken down.

These proclamations are copied in Appendix No. 1.

The jurisdiction asserted in the first of these proclamations is confined to "the establishment of a settled form of civil government over those of Her Majesty's subjects who are already settled in New Zealand, or who may hereafter resort thereto," and the boundaries of this colony are fixed, in the other proclamation. "to comprehend any part of New Zealand that is or may be acquired in sovereignty by Her Majesty." If it is conceded that this is an act of sovereignty over all the islands, its date is July 13, 1839, which is long subsequent to the dates of the deeds to Webster.

The treaty, which followed in February, 1840, ceded "to Her Majesty, the Queen of England, absolutely and without reservation, all the rights and powers of sovereignty which the said confederation of independent chiefs respectively exercise or possess over their respective territories as the sole sovereigns thereof." This admission of the sovereignty of the chiefs, on the 6th of February, 1840, ill accords with the right of Great Britain, before that date, to dispose of all the lands in New Zealand, as if they belonged to the Crown, as is done in the second proclamation issued by Captain Hobson, of date the 30th January,

1840.

The disposition of Webster's lands by the British Government was made under the powers given to the commission appointed by the Crown in the proclamations recited.

The Government of Great Britain assumed the ownership of all lands in New Zealand, and made rules for their disposal on January 30, 1840, and declared then that "no titles would be recognized that were not derived from or confirmed by Her Majesty." Afterwards, on the 6th of February, 1840, they confirmed by treaty to the chiefs, tribes, and individuals all the lands possessed by them, with all their forests and fisheries.

This reservation, or confirmation, practically covered the whole of New Zealand, for the tribes then claimed to possess as owners all the lands that they had not previously conveyed to other persons, including Webster, and as sovereigns their possession was distinctly affirmed.

Notwithstanding this treaty abrogation of the pretension of universal title in the British Crown to all the lands in New Zealand, which was declared in said proclamations, that pretension has been constantly adhered to and inforced, as against American citizens, through the decree of said commission, and according to the requirements of said proclamations. At this point the question arises, whether the lands acquired before June 15, 1839, by American citizens in New Zealand, from powers admitted by Great Britain to be sovereign, inured to the Crown of Great Britain, either in virtue of the proclamations of January 30, 1840, or the treaty of February 6, 1840. The statement of the question precludes the possibility of an affirmative answer, either as a matter of law or as a question of conscience.

But on this, the turning point in Webster's land claims, the Government of Great Britain has given its answer promptly and candidly in the negative. In an official letter of Lord Aberdeen, the British foreign secretary, to Mr. Everett, minister to England, dated February 10, 1844, he says:

[Extract.]

Lord Aberdeen to Mr. Everett.

The undersigned, Her Majesty's principal secretary of state for foreign affairs, had the honor in his note of the 3d ultimo to inform Mr. Everett, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the United States of America, that he had referred to Her Majesty's principal secretary of state for the colonies Mr. Everett's note of the 26th of December last relative to the complaints brought forward by several American citizens concerning the position in which they are placed in Her Majesty's colony of New Zealand, with respect to the recognition of certain of their titles to lands in that colony * (got) before the assertion of Her Majesty's sovereignty of those islands.

* *

Having now received an answer from the colonial department, the undersigned has the honor to inform Mr. Everett, with reference to the first head of complaint, that in consequence of certain questions raised by the American consul at Sydney as to the rights and obligations of aliens in New Zealand, instructions were forwarded to the governor of that island in the month of March, 1841, upon which occasion that officer was directed to bear in mind the principle that where aliens had acquired land from the chiefs prior to the proclamation of the Queen's sovereignty there, and that fact was undisputed, the claims should be acknowledged; but that where a doubt arose whether the alien made a bona fide purchase of the land, the settler should be treated as any British subject, and his claim disposed of accordingly.

To this arrangement Her Majesty's Government have since announced their determination to adhere, on the occasion of a reference being made by the governor of New Zealand on an application from a Belgian settler relative to the claims of the subjects of foreign powers to land. * * Trusting that these explanations will be satisfactory, the undersigned requests Mr. Everett to accept the assurances of his distinguished consideration.

*

ABERDEEN.

If the British Government maintain "their determination to adhere" to this arrangement, the only open question in Webster's claim is, whether his purchases were made in good faith. The fact of his purchase, the execution of the deeds, the subsequent affirmations of the chiefs made before the commission that they conveyed the lands in good faith and for a valuable consideration, are matters that have either been undisputed or are settled in his favor, as will be presently shown. But, it is worth while to consider, before proceeding further, whether the British Crown has any title, under the terms of the treaty of February 6, 1840, to any lands previously conveyed by the chiefs to Webster, even if such conveyances were void, or may be avoided, for fraud. The Government, without having passed upon the question mentioned in the instructions of the foreign office to the governor of New Zealand in February, 1844, and without having settled any question connected with Webster's legal or equitable rights, has sold or disposed of all his lands as crown lands. He has had no day in court, and his lands have been confiscated without a hearing and without notice.

If the conveyances to Webster were not bona fide, his possession of the land was the continuing possession of the defrauded chiefs, and their possession under the terms of the treaty reduced the interest of the Crown in these lands to a mere right of preëmption at a price to be agreed upon. Such a privilege of preemption gave the Crown no title to these lands until it had purchased them, and its seizure and sale of them was a wrong to the chiefs if Webster had defrauded them, or to Webster if he had honestly acquired the lands.

But the sale of these lands by the Government was, virtually, a final denial of all title in Webster, and closed all courts and tribunals to his legal or equitable demands. Here is a wrong done to an American citizen by the Government of Great Britain, by means of which its treasury has been replenished, and its courts are effectually closed against all redress. The question has, there ore, ceased to be one between a citizen of the United States and any citizen of New Zealand found in possession of the lands, which could be settled either in the colonial or the British courts. It is a question to which the Government of Great Britain has made itself a party, by claiming the lands of an American citi