[175] In November 1840 Lord John Russell entered into an agreement with the Company, by which they were to become entitled to select out of the extensive domain claimed by them one acre for every 5s. they could prove they had expended upon colonisation in New Zealand. A Mr. Pennington, a London accountant, was appointed to discover what the Company's expenditure had been. He reported that they had expended, as far as could be ascertained, the sum of £200,000, which on the basis of the arrangement entered into would have entitled them to select, approximately, 1,000,000 acres. This the Company asserted to Lord Stanley was a final determination of their rights, and that they were _ipso facto_ entitled to the land. Lord Stanley, however, held that the Company still had to show that they had lawfully and equitably extinguished the native title over this area, and that for this purpose their land must come under investigation by the Commission. The correspondence is embodied in the Parliamentary papers of the period. [176] Both sides of the Committee appear to have disregarded Major Bunbury's proceedings, not because they had no constitutional value, but probably because they were not sufficiently posted in the facts. [177] In October 1845, Governor Fitzroy wrote to Lord Stanley: "I cannot believe that those most dangerous resolutions of the House of Commons (Committee) in 1844 respecting unoccupied land, can be adopted by Her Majesty's Government, but if such should be the fatal case, the native population will unite against the settlers and the destruction of the colony as a field for emigration must result." [178] _Vide_ his letter to Archdeacon Henry Williams, November 11, 1845. [179] Governor Hobson died at 12.15 A.M. on September 10, 1842, at Auckland. Amongst a large section of the Northern Maoris the belief was current that he had been _makutaed_ (bewitched) by an old _tohunga_ (priest) at a banquet, the _tohunga_ being instigated by the section of natives who were opposed to the treaty. [180] In the previous debate Sir Robert had said: "If ever there was a case where the stronger party was obliged by its position to respect the demands of the weaker it was the engagements contracted under such circumstances with these native chiefs." [181] _Vide_ his Ordinance of March 26, 1844. For an able justification of this measure the reader is referred to Mr. George Clarke's _Final Report_, 1846, the manuscript of which is in the Hocken Collection at Dunedin. The pre-emptive right was finally abrogated in the Native Land Act of 1862. [182] _Vide_ his Despatch to Lord Stanley, December 10, 1845. [183] In this he was further assisted by the fact that Mr. Hawes, who had been prominent with him in the interests of the New Zealand Company, became his Under-Secretary, and Mr. Buller became Lord-Advocate.