Messrs. Smart and French also claimed the reward, or some recognition of their services in finding gold in many parts, but without avail.
Reviewing this payment it is most interesting to record the fact that the men who discovered other payable fields were treated in a much more liberal manner. To instance this, Hargreaves, who discovered gold in New South Wales, received a bonus of no less than £15,000 from the people of that State, and later a further £5,000 from the Victorian authorities, who also rewarded James Esmond to the extent of £1,000. In our own country Gabriel Read was paid £1,000 for his discovery at the gully which to-day bears his name. Yet Hunt received but £200 from a responsible authority for the discovery of a field which has to date yielded gold to the value of twenty-six million pounds and is still producing.
During the month of May prospecting was carried on by a slowly increasing number of men, all of whom were doing fairly well, but no real strike had yet been made. June witnessed continued activity and the arrival of further diggers. Then came a bolt from the blue, for on the 20th of this month James Hammett arrived from Christchurch with dispatches for Messrs. Dobson, Rochfort and Revell, the latter being instructed to sell off his supplies, close the depot and return to headquarters by September—in a word, to abandon Westland.
