"Observations of the Harbour of Auckland"
by William Powditch (1865)
(Page 23)
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23
SUPPLEMENTARY REMARKS
------------O------------
In putting my opinions on harbour works before the public of
Auckland, it seems necessary, from recent circumstances, that I
show the ground whereon I base my pretensions. Starting at the
commencement of my career as a boy in nautical pursuits, which
were followed out through all the necessary grades in the East
India service, in the course of which I had to show I had acquired
the requisite knowledge of the Thames pilotage, the Channel and
the southern harbours usually taken by the East India shipping.
and which was equally required in Indian seas. Subsequently, having
bought a share in a free ship, changes took place in my former line
by taking a charter, which brought me to New South Wales. It
had always been my business to engage in trade, and to look thereto
as the means for my support, and not to wages. On my second voyage
to New South Wales, intending to settle in the colony, the ship was
under charter to myself, and the cargo mostly on my account.
From New South Wales I have also conducted mercantile specula-
tions of some amount, which being entrusted entirely to myself, both
in destination and objects, required, especially in foreign ports a
reasonable knowledge of mercantile and marine pursuits. Regard-
ful always of the colony I resided in, on a voyage to the
Mauritius, I brought back, as I was told, the most valuable collec-
tion of plants from Madagascar and Mauritius, (among them the
pure castor oil); and on another voyage to South America coast,
about 1826, I brought back from Valparaiso a large number of
Olive plants and Lucerne seed, the first importation to New South
Wales of that plant, also a quantity of the sweet potato from one of
the South Sea Islands, giving about three tons to the government
gardener, who sent them to Melville Island and Morton Bay. In
1830 I was engaged by a Sydney house to bring down from Hobart
Town, a brig; seeking into the truth of the owner having con-
siderable property lying in New Zealand. I then thought I saw an
opening in the Bay of Islands to settle therein. On that voyage I
purchased a ton of potatoes at Hobart Town as a present for two
New Zealanders returning by the brig. These potatoes are known
by my name still in the north. In Hobson'e time I expended £40
on import of seeds from Valparaiso, among which again was lucerne,
which I distributed among those likely to attend to it.
In all my voyages I collected charts of harbours without
reference to visiting them, but to examine the action of tides
and oceanic currents in their formation, from which I might
draw general conclusions. I think then, without going further into
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