Te Hiakai, a brother of Iwi Kau of Banks Peninsula, stayed with Evans and his family for eight months before dying of consumption.
[4] Evans decided to go out with the first party of New Zealand Company settlers to Wellington (Port Nicholson) with Wakefield, who had selected the site on Cook Strait in the previous year.
[6] The new colonists' settlement at Petone was prone to flooding[7] so Evans called a public meeting and insisted that the newly-arrived settlers move around the harbour to what is now Thorndon.
[5] On 1 July, a great public meeting was held, at which Evans moved the adoption of a loyal address to Captain Hobson in a long speech, in which, whilst vindicating the legality of the proceedings of the council, he advised the settlers to sacrifice their feelings and submit to its dissolution with a good grace.
Subsequently, the meeting deputed Evans, Hanson and Moreing to proceed to Sydney to lay before the Governor of New South Wales (Sir George Gipps), who then had superior jurisdiction over New Zealand, the views of the settlers on the land question.
The Bill was passed, but it was really more particularly aimed at the exorbitant claims of New South Wales residents like Mr. Wentworth, who professed to have acquired twenty million acres from Maori, than at the requirements of genuine settlers such as those at Port Nicholson.
He was also hotly opposed to the policy of Governor Robert Fitzroy in cancelling the award of William Spain in relation to the Wellington land claims.
[5] Evans subsequently went to the colony of Victoria, and took a prominent part in the discussion of the various questions which agitated the early stages of its development under representative institutions.
When Sir Charles Gavan Duffy left the Government in March 1859, Dr. Evans took the additional portfolio of Minister of Lands, which he held till the dissolution of the Cabinet in October 1859.