indicate that the time had arrived when Her Majesty must be advised by her Ministers to adopt one of the last of Lord Glenelg's recommendations, before he left the Colonial Office,[39] and take measures without delay to obtain cession in sovereignty to the British Crown of such parts of New Zealand as are, or might be, occupied by British subjects, and that officers selected by the Queen, and not by the Company, would be appointed to administer the executive Government within such territory. "Under these circumstances," the Colonial Secretary concluded, "I must decline to furnish the Company with the introductory letters for which they apply." This intimation was given to the Company in the dying days of April 1839, and by the 13th of June Lords Normanby and Palmerston had, after consultation with the Law Officers of the Crown, agreed not only that the moment was ripe for official action, but that the proper course to take was to send to New Zealand an officer with Consular powers, whose first duty would be to secure the cession in sovereignty from the chiefs. The territory so ceded was then to be annexed to New South Wales, the Consul to be raised to the rank of Lieut.-Governor, acting under the Governor of the Mother colony, but invested with sufficient authority to preserve law and order in the country. His salary of £500 per annum was at first to be a charge upon the revenues of New South Wales, to be refunded so soon as the necessary arrangements could be made for the collection of taxation in New Zealand. On July 19 these proposals were confirmed by the Lords of the Treasury, whereupon Lord Palmerston penned the letter to Captain Hobson of which the opening paragraph of the previous chapter is a brief extract. In the meantime a clipper brig of 400 tons, named the _Tory_ had been quietly fitted out by the Company for a dash to New Zealand. She was armed with eight big guns, and as a precaution against a hostile reception, small arms were provided for all the members of the crew, a specially selected body of men. Under the command of Captain Chaffers, who had been round the world with Fitzroy in the _Beagle_, she left Plymouth Sound on May 12 (1839) and proving a smart sailer, crossed the equator twenty-six days out, the high land of the South Island being sighted in the vicinity of Cape Farewell on August 16. This pioneer ship of the Company's fleet carried in her cabin their official representative in the person of Colonel William Wakefield, and in her hold a full complement of pots, pipes, and Jews' harps, which that gentleman proposed to exchange as full value for the land he hoped to acquire by barter from the natives. The sailing of the _Tory_ was the New Zealand Company's challenge to the Government, and in any estimate of its subsequent policy this precipitate event must be accounted an important factor in endowing the Colonial Office with a vital force which had hitherto been sadly lacking.