The New Zealand portfolio

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"... Henry Samuel Chapman (1803-1881) was no newcomer to colonial matters. Already he had been eleven years in Canada as a merchant and with Samuel Revans, a founding editor of Canada's first daily newspaper, the Montreal Daily Advertiser. Here he became closely associated with the movement for colonial reform. He returned to England in 1834 and his interests brought him into touch with such men as J. S. Mill, Cobden, Ricardo and E. G. Wakefield. It was through the latter that Chapman's interest in New Zealand ripened. In 1840, at the age of thirty seven he qualified as a barrister and also founded the London based New Zealand Journal in close support of the New Zealand Company. It was against this background of colonial experience supplemented by continual reports of practical difficulties from Port Nicholson that the Portfolio was written. From 1843-1852 chapman was a Supreme Court Judge in Wellington, New Zealand. He then moved to Australia where he took a prominent part in legal and political affairs. He returned to New Zealand in 1864 on being again offered an appointment to the Judiciary, this time in Dunedin." -- Inside front cover.