Busby's draft was lost - Then it was Found!!

This is a fascinating story.

After Busby wrote the final draft, it was approved by Hobson and then given to Henry Williams and his son Edward who translated it into Maori.

Then it was read out to the chiefs by Governor Hobson (xx HW). Then the final draft seems to have been lost.

But this is what we think happened.

It was given to James Clendon the US consul. It was his job to keep the US secretary of State (xxx) up to date with constitutional affairs in New Zealand. So Clendon asked for copies of the draft (? HW) and sent them to the Secretary of State in the USA together with some other documents. This is known as Despatch Number 6. It is in our National Archives and the the US archives

A few days later Commodore Charles Wilkes in command of an American naval expedition to the Antarctic pulled into Russell Harbour to resupply and prepare his fleet of six ships, for the ardous trip down south. He heard of the treaty that had just been signed by the Maoris and also asked Clendon for a copy of it that he could send to the USA. This copy is in the Kansas Historical Society Topeka, USA. (And copies of it are in the Auckland Library)

So it appears that Clendon kept the final English draft and then a few years later he engaged a lawyer, Henry Littlewood of xxx to do some legal conveyancing work for him and it appears that he gave the treaty draft to Littlewood for safekeeping. It was handed down through the Littlewood family unknown and unnoticed until 1989 when Beryl and John Littlewood found it when clearing out their recently deceased mother’s effects.

Fast Forward

Now we enter a period of denial, deciet, obsctruction and straight out lies

Ruth Ross the famous treaty researcher wrote in xxx that there must have been a final English draft but she was not able to find it. Likewise Claudia Orange when writing her famous book of xxx said the same thing (page xxx)

If they had just researched the Clendon papers in our National Archives they would have found a copy of the final draft made by Clendon. (If anyone had researched the Clendon papers they may have also noticed that some documents were missing, removed, stolen or destroyed.)

Comments

Martin Doutre, a noted archaeologist turned treaty researcher put all of this together in his book "The Littlewood Treaty" 2005

More about the Littlewood Treaty

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