 Kettle continued working on the project for the next two years but after the demise of the New Zealand Company in 1850, his relations with William Cargill, leader of the Otago settlement, deteriorated, partly because Kettle was English while Cargill was narrowly Scottish.By 1852, Kettle had been made the colonial government's surveyor at Otago, thus resolving some of the tensions.In 1854 he resigned.