Peter Hemmingson: The Final English Draft That Torpedoes Treatyism

For more than a century, historians have accepted that the final English draft of the Treaty of Waitangi—the version given to missionary Henry Williams to translate into Māori—was lost to history.

In its place, the New Zealand legal system has long relied on the so-called “English version” inserted into statute law. But that document cannot possibly be the original final draft.
It differs significantly from Te Tiriti o Waitangi, not just in tone or emphasis, but in actual substance:

(1) It contains dozens of word-level differences that cannot be explained by normal translation variance.

(2) It introduces entirely new concepts not found in the Māori text, such as “forests and fisheries”—phrasing that does not appear in Te Tiriti.

(3) Crucially, it writes out the property rights of pre-Treaty settlers by changing the Article II guarantee from: “to the chiefs and tribes [the natives] and to all the people of New Zealand [the white pre-Treaty settlers who held land under tikanga—meaning as long as ‘their’ tribe could defend the locality against outsiders]” (as in the Māori version) to “to the chiefs and tribes of New Zealand” only.

This statutory “English version” is not a back-translation and certainly not the document from which Te Tiriti was rendered. It is a later legal artefact, retrofitted to accommodate policy agendas and legal interpretations that have nothing to do with what was agreed in 1840.

The document now known—somewhat misleadingly—as the Littlewood Treaty is not a treaty at all. It is the final English draft that was translated into Māori on 4 February 1840. Its provenance is beyond serious dispute:

(1) It is written in the verified handwriting of James Busby, the British Resident who co-authored the Treaty with US Consul, James Reddy Clendon; and the missionaries, Henry and Edward Williams.

(2) It is dated 4 February 1840, the exact date on which Henry and Edward Williams began translating the English draft into Māori.

(3) It is written on paper identified as coming from the private stock of U.S. Consul James Reddy Clendon—who hosted the meeting at his house where the final draft was completed and translated.

(4) The handwriting has been formally verified as Busby’s by New Zealand forensic document examiner Phil Wilkinson.

(5) The paper itself has been authenticated by expert analysis as matching Clendon’s private paper stock.

The Littlewood draft, originally in the possession of Beryl Needham’s ancestor Henry Littlewood, an English solicitor who resided in the Bay of Islands at the time Te Tiriti was signed and was professionally active during the colony’s early years, was rediscovered by Needham in 1989 among her deceased brother’s papers.

Her brother had been given the document by a government archivist who believed it might hold historical significance. Yet for over three decades, successive governments, historians, and legal institutions have refused to formally acknowledge its importance, despite its unmistakable alignment with the known events and timeline of 1840.

The so-called Littlewood Treaty was written on paper from the private stock of James Reddy Clendon, the U.S. Consul. That fact alone exposes the ignorance of those who claim it’s a forgery or an afterthought. Why Clendon’s paper? Because that’s where the final work was done.

On the night of 4 February 1840, James Busby, Clendon, and missionaries Henry and Edward Williams met at Clendon’s house to finalise the English draft and translate it into Māori. The idea that these men would row back out to HMS Herald in the dead of night to fetch government-issued paper at midnight is laughable.

They used the materials at hand—Clendon’s paper. That the Littlewood document is written on this paper is not suspicious; it's exactly what you'd expect if it’s the real draft—which it is.

The handwriting has been forensically verified as that of James Busby, the British Resident who co-authored the Treaty with Clendon, Williams Snr, and Williams Jnr. Busby, not some unnamed scribe, was responsible for preparing the final English draft.

The idea that Busby randomly decided to copy out a back-translation of the Māori text—when he was the one writing the English text in the first place—is absurd. The Busby authorship further confirms that this is the final working draft from which Te Tiriti was produced. Yet revisionist historians [sic] such as Claudia Orange have asserted that the document is a back-translation by an unnamed author.

This document is clearly dated 4 February 1840, the very day Hobson instructed Busby to prepare the final English version for translation. That evening, Henry and Edward Williams began translating it into Māori. The Māori text was presented to the chiefs the next morning, 5 February.

The date on the Littlewood document places it before the Māori version even existed, so any claim that it is a “back-translation” is flatly dishonest. It’s a lie repeated by people with ideological axes to grind, not a serious historical claim.

The Littlewood document and Te Tiriti o Waitangi differ by exactly one word: “Māori,” inserted into Article III by Henry Williams during translation. In 1840, Māori meant “ordinary” or “common” people—not an ethnic identity as it is used today.

Williams added the word to clarify that the Queen’s protection and the full rights of British subjectship applied to all the natives, not just the chiefs. Far from being a deviation, this small addition reinforces the core promise: full and equal citizenship under the Crown.

The implications are devastating for modern Treatyist orthodoxy. The Littlewood text makes no mention of partnership; co-governance; Māori sovereignty; or race-based political privilege

It is a straightforward document:

Article I: Māori cede sovereignty to the Crown

Article II: The Crown guarantees protection of property rights to both the natives and the pre-Treaty white settlers alike

Article III: Māori become British subjects with full rights and responsibilities

That’s it. No power-sharing. No two governments. No racial exceptionalism. Just equality under the Crown.

This is why the Littlewood document is aggressively ignored or misrepresented by the Treatyist establishment: because it collapses the entire ideological framework upon which the Treaty industry, with its bureaucratic gravy train and separatist agenda, is built.

And it has been primarily suppressed because it is a political hot potato for any politician bold enough to finally call out the lies peddled by these people, and tell them to talk to the hand.

And so, for over thirty years since Beryl Needham discovered the Littlewood document in 1989, the New Zealand state, its courts, and its academics have refused to formally acknowledge its existence—let alone its significance.

Even if everything asserted by the Treaty industry was in fact correct, the elephant in the room is that imported bloodlines have so-diluted the original Māori race that ‘Māori’ today exists only as a politicised cultural concept.

Every so-called ‘Māori’ alive today is of mixed European-Māori descent—and in nearly all cases, has more European ancestry than Polynesian, no matter how brown their skin, Polynesian their features, or how ‘culturally Māori’ they present.

The term ‘Māori’ has shifted from a description of the native population to a politicised identity marker, often weaponised to claim special status or ancestral grievance.

That a person whose ancestry is majority European can demand co-governance rights on the basis of an ever-attenuated, partial lineage is absurd—and yet it is the cornerstone of modern Treatyism.

The Littlewood document exposes this entire structure for what it is: a house of cards built on bad faith and historical revisionism.

In conclusion, the so-called Littlewood Treaty is not a treaty—it is the long-missing final English draft from which Te Tiriti o Waitangi was translated.

It is: (1) Dated correctly; (2) Authored by the right person; (3) Written on the right paper; (4) Created in the right place; (5) Consistent with the known timeline; and (6) most importantly, faithfully reflected in the Māori text presented to the chiefs

It demolishes the lies of co-governance, partnership, and race-based sovereignty. That’s why it has been buried. But the truth is out—and once the public sees it, the entire Treatyist edifice falls.

Peter Hemmingson is a New Zealander of multiple ethnic origins, who believes in a single standard of citizenship for all.