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NATAL

10

CORRESPONDENCE RELATIVE TC

1. That during the infancy of the Colony, as well as subsequently through a long period of years, you have continued, unaided, to supply the spiritual wants of the members of the Church of England in this city with a zeal and efficiency rarely equalled.

2. That in doing this you have shrunk from no amount of exertion or of bodily fatigue, having for a long period performed four services in two separate churches on every Sunday, which, especially in a hot climate, cannot be done without great trial of physical endurance.

3. That your ministrations to the sick and dying have ever been given in the true spirit of Christianity, and with such utter disregard of self or of bodily ease as to obtain for you heartfelt and lasting gratitude as well as the deep affection and sincere respect of all classes of society.

4. That your faithful and consistent walk among us for so long a period has enhanced the value of your verbal ministrations, and shown to us all a pattern of real earnestness and truly Christian conduct never to be forgotten.

Finally, with an earnest prayer that God may long grant to you the power of continuing your indefatigable labours in His service, and to this city the inestimable blessing of so tried and faithful a pastor,

We are, &c. (Signed) HENRY PINSON,

COLONIAL BISHOPRICS.

No. 7.

COPY of a DESPATCH from the Acting Lieut.-Governor to the Right Hon. EDWARD

(No. 61.)

SIR,

CALDWELL, M.P.

11

ΠΑΤΑΙ

No. 7.

Government House, Natal, June 1, 1866.

(Received, July 18, 1866.) (Answered, No. 3, July 26, 1866, p. .) In accordance with the Colonial Regulations, page 136, article 204, and at the request of Mr. G. H. Wathern (a member of the Legislative Council of this Colony), I have the honor to transmit the enclosed letter from that gentleman, requesting me to 31st May 1865. forward to you the accompanying petition to Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen.

I have, &c., JOHN J. BISSET, Col. Acting Lieut.-Governor.

The Right Hon. Edward Cardwell, M.P. (Signed)

&c.

&c.

&c.

24th May 1866.

And 860 others.

Enclosure in No. 7.

Encl. in No. 7.

TUTTI

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

C.O.8

Reference -

No. 6.

•Page 1. flage 6.

No. 6.

COPY of a DESPATCH from the Right Hon. the Earl of CARNARVON to the Acting Licut.-Governor of Natal.

(No. 6.) Sin,

Downing Street, August 12, 1866.

I HAVE had under my consideration your Despatches, No. 25 and 26,† of the 22nd and 23rd of February last, relating to the course pursued by the Colonial Chaplain, Mr. Green, in relation to the Ecclesiastical controversies which now disturb the Colonies of the Cape of Good Hope and Natal.

The case appears to be this. Dr. Gray, in the capacity or supposed capacity of Metropolitan of South Africa, has pronounced a sentence of deposition against Dr. Colenso in his capacity or supposed capacity of Bishop of Natal, and this sentence of deposition being pronounced invalid at law by the Judicial Committee, and being accordingly resisted by Dr. Colenso, Dr. Gray has resorted to the ecclesiastical instrument of excommunication to enforce compliance.

Upon this, Mr. Green, who previously to the consecration of Dr. Colenso had been appointed to a colonial chaplaincy in Natal, to which a salary had been attached by the Colonial Legislature, refused any longer to recognize Dr. Colenso as his clerical superior, and further proceeded to publish Dr. Gray's sentence of excommunication in the church of Pietermaritzburg. Under these circumstances the question arises whether Mr. Green should be allowed to retain the salary attached by the Legislature to the colonial Chaplaincy.

It would seem to follow from the judgment of the Judicial Committee in 1865 that when Letters Patent were issued purporting to form the Bishopric of Natal, the Crown was really not competent to create a legal see or bishopric in that Colony, and that Dr. Colenso did not derive from these Letters Patent the legal status of Diocesan Bishop. In this state of things, and having regard to the complicated and embarrassing questions of Church doctrine and discipline now at issue in South Africa, I am not prepared to go beyond the law or to use the power of Government to deprive the clergy of Natal of any liberty which the law may give them in respect of either acknowledging or not acknowledging in Dr. Colenso a diocesan authority which does not of legal right belong to him. Whatever legal rights, if any, that he or Mr. Green may possess, I must leave them to enforce as may be practicable in a court of justice, and if any doubt exists whether the public money voted by the Legislature to the Colonial Chaplain should be paid to a clergyman acknowledging the episcopal authority of Dr. Colenso, or to s clergyman repudiating that authority, it will be for the Legislature, not indeed to interfere in the ecclesiastical controversy, but to define its own intention with regard to the disposal of the public money.

The Acting Lieut.-Governor of Natal,

&c.

&c.

&c.

I have, &c.

(Signed) CARNARVON.

Sin,

Maritzburg, May 31, 1866. I HAVE the honor of enclosing herewith, for His Excellency the Adininistrator of the Govern- ment, a petition from myself, to Her Most Gracious Majosty, in triplicate, and would respectfully request that His Excellency transmit the same to the Right Honourable the Secretary for the Colonies, by the outgoing mail.

I have, &c.

The Honourable the Colonial Secretary,

&c.

&c.

&c.

(Signed)

G. H. WATHEN.

To the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, the Petition of GEORGE HENRY WATHEN, of the

Colony of Natal.

HUMBLY SHEWETH,

THAT your petitioner is a member of the United Church of England and Ireland, and would approach Your Majesty, as Hend and Governor of that Church, to lay before you a statement of the ills which afflict such of its members as are resident in this Colony, and praying that Your Majesty may devise some means for allaying these evils.

Your petitioner humbly submits the following facts: that in the year 1804 the Bishop of Cape Town, believing himself vested by Your Majesty's Letters Patent with the powers of metropolitan, tried and deposed his suffragan, the Bishop of Natal; that subsequently, on appeal, this deposition was declared null and void in law by the Judical Committee of Your Majesty's Privy Council; that this tribunal further declared that neither in the case of the Bishop of Capo Town, nor in that of the Bishop of Natal, could the Letters Patent legally convey coercive jurisdiction to these functionaries; that, however, in the same judgment this high tribunal declared that it adhered to the judgment given by it in the case of Long v. the Bishop of Cape Town, in which a limited jurisdiction by the Bishop of Cape Town over his clergy appeared to have been admitted that this judgment being thus in seeming conflict with itself, is appealed to by hostile parties in this Colony in support each of its own opinion and in proof both that the Bishop of Natal has jurisdiction over his diocese, and that he has no such jurisdiction and that, mainly owing to this uncertainty, the entire diocese has been thrown into disorder and split into fractions; and that to such a pitch has this proceeded in Maritzburg, the cathedral city of the diocese, that open disputes have occurred in vestry meetings held in the church; rival churchwardens have been chosen; the church doors have been locked, broken open, and at last in part have been carried away by the Dean of the Cathedral to his own home; that the said Dean openly refuses to obey the orders of Your Majesty's Supreme Court requiring that he allow the Bishop to have access to the Parish Baptismal Register; and that at this moment the diocese of Natal is utterly disorganized and torn by party strife and animosity, a strife to which we can see no end, unless a remedy to these evils shall be provided by Your Majesty's wisdom and zeal for the glory of God and the peace and unity of His Church.

That these evils, great though they be, are not the only ones, which call for. Your Majesty's caro and solicitude. The tribunal which pronounced Bishop Colenso to be guilty of heretical teaching has been pronounced by high authority to have no jurisdiction in such a case. But no other tribunal exists which can pretend to take cognizance of heretical teaching in a Bishop of Natal, to whatever length such teaching may be carried; nay, more, even moral delinquencies, however flagrant and notorious, if such should ever exist in a colonial bishop, would still be beyond the jurisdiction of any legal tribunal; and in such a case the delinquent might plead that he must be held innocent until proved to be guilty by competent authority, though well aware that no such authority existed. That thus a colonial bishop, while invested with all the prestige derived from Your Majesty's appointment, is in the anomalous position of being subject neither to control nor correction, however gross may be his violation of duty; and is probably the only instance in Christendom of episcopal authority being vested in a person amenable to no tribunal for any abuse, however flagraut, of his high office.

Finally, your petitioner humbly submits that a state of things in which such a complete failure of justice is possible, and may exist at this moment, a state of things which has already produced so much B 2

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3 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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