Provisional Constitution.

A Committee was formed, comprising the following:—Colonel Wakefield; Geo. Samuel Evans; Hon. W. H. Petre; Dudley Sinclair, Esq.; F. A. Molesworth, Esq.; Capt. Edward Daniell; Lieut. W. M. Smith, the Company's Surveyor General; Messrs. R. D. Hanson, E. B. Hopper; Geo. Duppa; George Hunter; H. Moreing; H. St. Hill; Thos. Partridge; and Major Durie. Colonel Wakefield was first President. Dr. Evans, first Umpire, was to state the punishment if a party should be declared guilty. The Committee and Umpire were authorised to make rules, and the former were to direct the calling out of the armed inhabitants. Colonel Wakefield was to have the highest authority in directing the armed inhabitants when called out, with assistance from such persons as were chosen by the Committee. The Committee were to have power to make regulations for preserving the peace of the settlement, levy rates and duties necessary to defray all expenses attending the management of the affairs of the Colony and the administration of justice.

This constitution was taken on board the fleet of emigrant ships, when preparing to sail from the Thames, by some of the Directors of the Company; and the adhesion of the whole Colony was obtained to its enforcement.

It was in accordance with this agreement that the first meeting of the Committee took place on the 2nd March, 1840, in a wooden frame house belonging to Captain Smith, which was then situated in the sand-hummocks about half a mile east of Pito-one. Nothing was done beyond preparatory measures for obtaining the sanction of the chiefs, many members of the Committee being yet absent.

On the 2nd of March, 1840, at dusk, a report was brought to Pito-one that the Hutt River was overflowing its banks in many places. An attempt to ascend the river, in order to give assistance, proved ineffectual, owing to the force of the current swollen by the rains.

Colonel Wakefield went up the valley next morning and found as much as eight inches of water in some of the houses on the river-bank.

That afternoon the “Cuba” arrived from Kawhia, and anchored in Lambton Harbour, conveying Mr. Richard Davies Hanson, who was appointed agent of the New Zealand Land Company, for the purchase of lands.

On the 4th at noon the gale ceased, the weather cleared up, and the sun shone out bright and warm. The people at the Hutt joked about the fright which the flood had caused them and appeared to treat it as a picnic casualty, and no colds were complained of.

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About thirty or forty people, chiefly followers of Mr. Molesworth from Cornwall, erected a long row of reed and flax cottages on an elevated shingly ridge to seaward of the small creek at the south end of the bivouac, and christened it Cornish Row.

On the 5th the boiler of a steam engine was towed up the river, the different vents having been first plugged so as to make it float. On the beach a speculator from Sydney attempted to sell some goods by auction in the open air, and collected a goodly throng of gaping emigrants; but he wanted an advance of 50 per cent, on Sydney prices for bad things and could find no buyers.

Colonel Wakefield's room in the storehouse built by Te Puni, in the pa at Pito-one and which faced the south-east, was anything but warm during a heavy south-east gale, which threw a heavy surf on to the beach and tried the strength of several of the tent-ropes.

The only window to the room was a piece of canvas, and the door a rickety and badly fitted one from a ship-cabin. A large dresser along one side of this room, which was about eight feet broad and twenty long, served for table and writing desk. At the end furthest from the door, a “bunk,” or wooden shelf, supported the Colonel's bed. His nephew's (Edward JerninghaMcs), cot was placed on the top of a pile of musket cases and soap boxes against the partition.

The floor consisted of the natural grey shingle which formed the beach; and the roof, which was luckily water-proof, bent and yielded to every puff of wind. The plan of tying everything together with flax made these Maori houses so elastic that no wind could blow them down. The thatched walls were highly airy, and a copious ventilation circulated through them in every direction. They had plenty of thick blankets and slept well. A sea bath was close to the door, and wonders were done in the cooking by Saturday, a Rotuma man, who officiated as Jack-of-all-trades until the return of the Colonel's servant in the “Tory.”

Mr. Henry Moreing's tent was close by. This was a double tent, perfect as to order and comfort.

Next to Mr. Moreing's tents was the camp of Mr. J. C. Crawford, who had been one of the first overlanders from New South Wales and was dwelling in a hut. About this time he bought, for 1300 guineas, five land orders from Mr. Dudley Sinclair. These land-orders were each an authority from the Company to their agent to allow the owner to select one town acre and one hundred country acres according to the number which he had obtained in the lottery.

A brig arrived from Sydney with thirty head of cattle, said to have been chartered by a Company formed in Sydney with a large capital to buy land and occupy it. The agent on board laid claim to a large tract of land nearly opposite the island of Mana, bought from some former purchaser; but the operations of the agent had been stopped by a proclamation made at Sydney on the 14th of January, against any further purchasing of land in New Zealand.

The agent asked from £30 to £40 per head for his cows, but found no purchasers.