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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 76

Testimonials of Appreciation

Testimonials of Appreciation.

On retiring from the salaried service of New Zealand I had the great satisfaction to receive a very favourable letter from the Colonial Government regarding my services, and at a public meeting of the merchants of Nelson I was presented with an address and a handsome testimonial. I also received a large nugget of gold from a Young Men's Mutual Improvement Society as a souvenir of my having been their President. These testimonials have been a great source of gratification to me during the whole of my after life, as well as of thankful acknowledgment of the divine aid which enabled me to accomplish the services so kindly accepted and generously rewarded. For some years afterwards I was occupied as Visiting Magistrate to the gaol and asylum, and on the Board of Education and Hospital Committees, together with other unpaid offices, and the delightful recreation of cultivating my garden and orchard in the healthful climate of the picturesque and pleasing settlement of Nelson, where the ordinary fruits of Britain, as well as peaches and vines, grow luxuriantly. To those born in the colony, or who have relatives and old friends page 35 there, New Zealand affords perhaps the most desirable place of residence under the British flag. But the changeful circumstances of colonial life and the greatly reduced number of our friends and contemporaries made us feel a natural longing to spend our latter years amongst our relatives and friends in the old country. In the year 1875 we sailed for England. Much kind attention, both public and private, was shown to us at parting, and we carried with us a very grateful sense of the many blessings we had enjoyed during more than 30 years of life in New Zealand.