[93] The following interesting reminiscences regarding the Treaty of Waitangi are from the pen of Mr. George Elliott-Elliott, who in the year 1841 was Record clerk in the Government service: "This celebrated document, a sort of New Zealand Magna Charta in its importance, is not a single document, but is composed of a number of separate sheets; and, if I remember rightly, some few are of parchment and some of paper--the text is the same in all; these separate sheets were sent to the different tribes and _hapus_ of natives for the signatures of the different chiefs and influential men amongst them. Some of them could write, and signed their names; others affixed their marks, in the shape of what was supposed to be an imitation of the tattoo on their faces. Each of these sheets was in charge of some well-known European, generally some one in connection with the Church of England or Wesleyan Missions, who attested the signatures and remarks of the various persons on the document, and, on completion, returned it to the Government. "There is no doubt that this treaty has a _mana_ peculiar to itself, and that the natives regard it with respect. They believe that they have thereby voluntarily given up to the _Pakeha_ a something which is their loss and the _Pakeha's_ gain; but what that something is they are quite unable to define. I feel pretty sure that if, from any accident in the early days, this document had been lost or destroyed, the natives would never have been induced to sign another. That it was once saved from such accident the following will show: In 1841 the Government offices were held in a four-roomed wood cottage in Official Bay, Auckland. The Colonial Secretary, the Audit, the Colonial Treasurer, and the Customs each had one room. Mr. Shortland was Colonial Secretary (the Audit was also under his control), Mr. Cooper was Colonial Treasurer and Collector of Customs. There were four clerks in the establishment--Grimstone in the Treasury, Leech in the Audit, Freeman and myself in the Colonial Secretary's. We were the Government in those prehistoric days. I was called Clerk of Records, and had charge of the various records and papers--not many then--amongst them this Treaty of Waitangi. This, with the seal of the colony, I kept in a small iron box brought from Sydney in the _Westminster_ the year before. I was living in a _raupo_ whare in Queen Street, close to Shortland Street, at that time ('41), when early one morning--I can't remember the precise date--I observed a great body of smoke ascending from Official Bay. I at once ran up Shortland Street, and on reaching the top of the hill found that the Government offices were on fire. When I got to the building one end was in flames and the place full of smoke. I saw that nothing could save the place. I at once tied my handkerchief over my face, got the door open, and rushed into the room which the Colonial Secretary occupied. I could not see for the smoke, and the