CHAPTER VIII. THE KENDALL CORRESPONDENCE, 1821-22.
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CHAPTER VIII
THE KENDALL CORRESPONDENCE, 1821-22.
UPON the arrival in England in August, 1820, Kendall had shown himself prepared to submit to authority and ready to acknowledge his errors. "I am ready to acknowledge my error in undertaking this voyage without permission from the Society or an express order from Mr. Marsden," he wrote to the Secretary. * "My mind, I am concerned to say, was in such a state of affliction and disorder at the time of my embarkation for this country that I did not sufficiently consider the evil tendency of such a step. I entreat the Honourable Committee to forgive me. As far as I am acquainted with the feelings of my own heart, it is my desire to do my duty according to the best of my ability both to God and the Society, but I know I often do wrong, sometimes in consequence of the wickedness of my own heart, at other times in consequence of the want of a clear judgment as to the path of duty. I humbly hope and pray to God that I may be enabled in future so to conduct myself as becomes a Christian missionary and a servant of the Society."
With his return to New Zealand, however, he once more became a law to himself, endeavoured to please his Maori friends by providing them with muskets and powder as before, and when subjected to criticism by Marsden defended himself with the utmost vigour. On September 27th, 1821, he addressed the following letter to Marsden from the Bay of Islands:--"When I received your letter bearing date June 29th last, relative to the practice of parting with European arms and ammunition amongst the natives of New Zealand in exchange for their property, in which you accused me of disobedience to the commands of the Society and a want of candour in neglecting to make known to the Secretary my intentions, as you supposed, in the above respects, I immediately told you (for the letter to which I allude was given to me by yourself in Mr. Campbell's yard at Sydney) that I differed from you much less in opinion than you imagined; in fact I agreed with you as to the matter. I only differed from you as to the manner in which you attempted as agent of the Church Missionary Society to put a general stop to the barter of muskets, etc., both amongst the ships which frequented the Bay and in the settlements, after the practice had become common. I conceived your plan of preventing the natives having a free trading intercourse with
* Mr. Thomas Kendall to the Secretary, dated 14th August, 1820, Church Missionary House.--Kendall Correspondence, Hocken Library, Dunedin.
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Europeans with respect to articles of traffic of every description without exception would have a tendency to prejudice their feelings against you and against us all. On the part of the New Zealanders I believed they had an undoubted right to seek such payment as they might think most conducive to their own interests or convenience, or else how could they be a free people? And they consider themselves free, whatever we may think to the contrary. They have too much pride and independence of spirit to take in good part any restraints that we may think necessary to lay upon them. On our part, I nevertheless conceived it to be right, as missionaries, to avoid introducing arms and ammunition amongst them as much as possible, because the disposal of such things by us did not seem to correspond with the object we had in view, nor would the idea of our so doing be pleasing to the religious world. But surely we ought not to incur the displeasure of the natives by opposing their interests amongst our countrymen. We ought to live a quiet life amongst them if we would wish to do them good. To have been enabled to mark out for ourselves the proper course which we ought to have steered would have preserved us free from blame, but we could not do this.
"I do not know what you may think, but I am convinced in my own mind, by past experience and even from your own measures, that the difficulty of preventing disposal of muskets and powder in the Church Missionary settlement has not rested with me, nor my colleagues, nor yourself, but it has arisen and gained ground imperceptibly, chiefly on account of the circumstances of our situation in a country where there is no regular mode of exchange by means of sterling money, currency, etc., and where there is no regular market where the natives can, independent of us, procure what they want in exchange for their property. For what articles, shall we say for the sake of coming at a clear view of the question, do the natives esteem equal in value to our copper, silver, and gold? Why, they esteem fish-hooks as equal in value to our copper, axes and hoes to our silver, and muskets and powder to our gold. Nor can we dictate to them which of these they must receive in payment for their property and services. They dictate to us. When they bring their property for sale or when they engage to do any work for us, they have a certain object in view. The man who wants a musket will not be put off with axes or fishhooks. If we cannot produce the object of his wishes, he takes away his merchandise in a fit of ill-humour, attributing a denial not to conscientious motives on our part but to obstinacy, knowing that we can procure with ease all articles manufactured in England. Let the circumstances of our situation be duly weighed. Reflect for a moment that we are not only connected with, but we are the subjects of, a heathen government. Consider the absolute control which the natives have over us directly and over our property and proceedings indirectly, having it in their power very considerably
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to increase or diminish our supplies, and that the passion of the natives for war and arms is ungovernable. New Zealand is divided amongst thousands of different tribes or clans, and while the natives are heathens and under the dominion of Satan and thus divided into small chiefdoms or principalities, they will fight and destroy each other. Will not these islanders convert anything and everything they can into war instruments? Even axes, hatchets, reaping hooks, brush hooks, or anything else that has a sharp edge or is heavy enough to break a man's skull, they will use as weapons of war when they cannot procure European arms. I am certain you are aware of the extreme difficulty of withstanding their incessant importunities, having yourself witnessed them at the doors of the missionary settlers; and would have witnessed them at your own door if your family had been resident at New Zealand instead of Port Jackson. Are we not under the necessity for our support, peace, and security to conciliate the natives in every possible way? Let a man who is resident amongst them pursue for any length of time any plan which would hurt their pride or affect their interests, however conscientiously he may act, and he would soon be robbed and scouted off the island.
"Shunghee (Hongi) is a good man for a savage barbarian, and he is disposed to be a friend to us as much as ever. But then he would be an enemy to us if we opposed his interests (taking them according to his views) however we might conscientiously disapprove of promoting them. Like all other self-interested men, he wants to have everything done in his own way and manner and to promote his own ends. If I had opposed him, whilst we were in England or on our passage out, in purchasing powder, muskets, or anything else, he would have been so vexed and churlish with me and with all around us that we should have tired, offended, and almost frightened many friends who, as we otherwise acted, were happy to receive us into their houses; and I might reasonably have expected upon my return to New Zealand to have met his friends, instead of thanking me and caressing me for the care I took of him, loading me with reproaches; and they would, I have no doubt, have chastised me severely. Now if I had suffered in this manner, it would not have been for the profession of my faith in Christ or for anything immediately connected with religion. I should not therefore have suffered as a missionary, but for reasons purely of a temporal or a political nature. It made also a wide difference between my proceeding with Shunghee from New Zealand to England merely to see England, and making a conciliatory voyage with him as I did, with a view to secure his friendship and the favour of his people after my return, having also in view the future residence of my family and the probability of my own future usefulness among them. It is only on account of your opposing Shunghee's interests and the political interests of his people that he is so much displeased with you.
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"It seems to have escaped your memory that in the latter end of the year 1818, being the time when the practice of parting with muskets and powder became general in the settlement, with a view that the missionaries as well as the ships might be enabled to procure from the natives the necessaries of life, I wrote a letter to you in which I requested you to send a general order to the settlers in order to prevent the above traffic in future in the settlement if it did not meet with your approbation. In your answer bearing date February 28th, 1819, you told me you had taken care to prevent anything of the kind being done on the part of the Active, but you did not send a general order as I requested, and perhaps you might then be disposed to make some allowance for our difficulties, as you could plainly foresee that the Active could not possibly procure a cargo of timber at the Cavalles, nor could she hardly at any time procure a sufficient quantity of pork for the ship's company without paying at least for part of it in the above way. A captain of a ship or a single missionary may submit to many privations, but can a captain so easily silence the complaints of a ship's company or a missionary the complaints of a number of children when such necessaries as they want are at hand? I think you will probably regret having interfered so much and so publicly in a matter in which good men might differ in opinion. Some things ought to be left to the discretion of the missionaries themselves, and to complain of what has been done by them in comparison with what has been done by men of the world is like complaining of a bucket of water in a deluge. I do not think there can be much less than two thousand stand of arms amongst the natives.
"Give me leave, dear Sir, to state to you--and I assure you it is my desire to do it with due respect--some points in which I differ from you.
"1. Your original and subsequent representations to the Society respecting the state of the New Zealanders and the probability of the immediate success of the missionaries have proved on trial too flattering. You undoubtedly formed your opinion of the character, etc., of the natives in the first instance from the behaviour of those who from time to time resided in your house, and you did well to give every reasonable encouragement to the Christian world; but you must certainly have known after your first visit to this country that one or two natives encircled in civilized society are no fair specimen of the rest, as no opportunity is afforded there of bringing heathen principles into action. Would it not therefore have been fair to have reduced your proposals into such a shape as to enable the missionary in some measure to keep pace with them? I shall feel myself happy, if God should spare my life, if I should see one New Zealand convert in twenty years to come.
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"2. Your public censures are too apt to exceed the limits of godly admonition. In vexing and harassing yourself so much when you see or think you see a person neglecting his duty, you sooner harden than cure him. I am sure I can answer for myself, and my colleagues tell me they possess the same feelings towards you as I do, that I could with sincere pleasure do anything for you, either as agent of the Society or otherwise, if you would act with kindness and avoid harsh censures and irritating expressions.
"3. You are in the habit of sending such succours from Port Jackson generally as in your opinion are sufficient to supply the wants of all the settlers and furnish them with the means of carrying on their appointed work. The settlers, I am sure, are unwilling to attach any blame to you when these supplies are inadequate to the demands of the settlement, but then certainly it is not fair to censure them for not doing their duty when at any time they have not sufficient means within their reach and at their disposal, or when they are in want of suitable accommodation. Commend the poor missionaries for the little they are enabled to do, and do not crush them with reproach for the much they cannot do or leave undone. Treat them not as servants but as brethren. Let them feel an equal share of your regard and do not distress them by preferring one before another. Do not listen to men of the world. It is not fair that they should be permitted to sit in judgment upon us. I fear you are not sufficiently cautious in this respect. I am told there are persons in Port Jackson who are in the habit of vexing and harassing you, or in other words quizzing you, about transactions in New Zealand of which they must be unable to judge, not being acquainted with the causes which lead to them. These persons can feel no true interest in our success amongst the heathen while they can find fault with us and keep their purses shut at the same time. I should be happy to see such persons here. They would then see how easy it is to set up their frivolous opinions and how difficult to succeed in following them.
"4. I think you expect too much from measures of a temporal nature. You seem to give more encouragement to husbandry and agriculture, and to be more zealous respecting them than you are about churches and schools. You have always attended cheerfully to applications made to you for cattle, etc., even after some had been destroyed by the natives, but you have not always seen your way so clearly respecting churches and schools. If I might be permitted to give my opinion, I should say that so far as the ultimate object of the Society is concerned one pound laid out in the support of a school is of more advantage than two, or perhaps than five, laid out in cattle, etc. Cattle go wild for want of grass.
"5. There are persons employed in the settlement who you well know are addicted to profane swearing and other kinds of vice. They are recognized with us by the New Zealanders as members of one body. Now we have enough of evil amongst
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ourselves without suffering such characters to increase the aggregate. Such steady men as Messrs. Bean and Fairburn are certainly useful. I know your difficulties with respect to procuring men of good character in Port Jackson. I only suggest whether it would not be better to dispose with the services of bad men than to have them constantly amongst us.
"6. You seem not to be aware that, except there is a powerful European force at New Zealand for the protection of the property of the settlers, all outdoor property at least is very unsafe. The finest crop of wheat is liable to be destroyed in a few hours to appease the ungrounded resentment of an unfriendly or discontented chief. We may sow, and we ought to sow, but we cannot rely upon gathering in the harvest. I have often heard you preach with delight on the character and proceedings of St. Paul. He was a missionary. I would hint at the probability of it becoming in a short time our duty to itinerate amongst the natives as missionaries usually do, if the natives remain so unsettled that they will neither abide with us nor let us carry on with quietness our ordinary vocations.
"7. You object to the settlement at Ranghee Hoo (Rangihoua) as a proper place for a church or chapel. Now this question was fully discussed, and an arrangement made for erecting a church here, before my departure from England. A bell, nails, window glass, and other materials for the said purpose are, I have no doubt, before this at Port Jackson. It is allowed by all the missionaries that if there be any proper places at the Bay of Islands for churches and schools Ranghee Hoo is one. Where would you expect to raise a school and collect a number of natives together for worship but where there is a native village and a number of children? There is nothing to entice me to remain here. It is the worst situation in a temporal point of view in which we could be placed; I mean for the purposes of agriculture. I believe the spot to have been well chosen as it respected our personal safety, which was the primary object you had in view.
"I now proceed to make a few remarks upon some observations which have been made by you of a personal nature.
"1. Never since I entered into the service of the Society have I indulged one wish to disobey its commands. It has been always my desire to conduct myself respectfully towards the Society as a body of Christians and towards its officers as the representatives of that body. It was on these grounds that my letter to you upon my arrival with the chiefs Shunghee and Waikato in Port Jackson in the month of May last was penned. I knew there had been feelings of an unpleasant nature excited between us, and I was anxious on my part to do all in my power to remove them. The manner in which I expressed myself apparently met with your approbation, and I trusted we should in future go on in a comfortable way. But how you astonished me a few days after
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the above intercourse when you told me it was your intention to bring me before a magistrate about a transaction in New Zealand, with which in fact the magistrate had nothing to do. Why! as the charges related to the disposal of muskets amongst the natives of New Zealand, in which we had both had a share directly or indirectly, I should have been tempted to retort upon you any charges you might make of such a nature. I should have displeased my native friends if I had yielded to you, and by one means or another we should have made Sydney ring with our altercations. I frankly own I told you that I could not obey the Society (meaning the officers of the Society in general and yourself in particular) in such matters, when you were telling me I must go before a magistrate, merely, as I judged, to satisfy the whim of a Port Jackson settler. If any officer of the Society should exceed the limits of his authority in his conduct towards the missionaries, I do not think it disobeying the Society to let that officer know that such unauthorised conduct is disapproved of.
"2. I did tell Mr. Pratt that the property and exertions of the natives of New Zealand at the Society's settlement could not be generally commanded without muskets and powder in payments, and I should not have scrupled to tell him that I must requite the obligations I should be under to those native friends who were requested to attend to and take care of my family during my absence from them in the above way. I have no proceedings at New Zealand to hide from the Society. I must confess, however, that in whatever I stated to Mr. Pratt respecting New Zealand I felt a want of confidence. He appeared to me to be wholly unprepared to enter into the peculiar difficulties of the missionaries or the true state of the Mission. He could not please the chiefs at all. He had no suitable introductory letter from you. He could not recognize them as the representatives of a large portion of the inhabitants of New Zealand. Little did he think how much we were all interested in the attention which might be paid to the chiefs by the Society. Shunghee and Waikato will give a minute detail of all the little attentions which were paid to them by persons in England wherever they go, and the thousands of hearers will feel almost as much interest in the narrative as they will themselves.
"3. I never objected to my daughters instructing the female natives of New Zealand, and never had any communications with you wherein I expressed anything of the sort. I am really at a loss to know how you grounded your representations to the Society. It must arise out of some peculiar mistake, as I cannot think you would do it intentionally.
"4. I never neglected the school whilst there was a scholar left or food to support him. When the native children deserted the school in pursuit of provisions, I commenced paying visits to the native chiefs as the best way of spending my time. I trust I
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shall go on with a school again as soon as I can obtain sufficient means to begin and carry it on.
"5. With respect to my differences with my colleague Mr. Hall, they were not of a personal but of a public nature. If Mr. Hall had been furnished with the means of carrying on his work and I with the means of carrying on my school, and we had neither of us been encouraged to think of making ourselves independent of the Society, but had been instructed to rest ourselves content in the Society's service, we could not have materially differed. Mr. Hall had a work to do, and as he had not sufficient means of doing it in the settlement he carried it on as well as he could with his own private property. We were an annoyance to each other. I have done all in my power to come to an explanation with Mr. Hall and trust I have effected a reconciliation.
"I think you have been a little too sharp with us in your remarks to the Society respecting the horses and cattle. Were not the natives pulling down the fences of Messrs. Hall and King at the very time you observed 'If a fence had been put across somewhere the cattle would have been saved?' When you put so much into the scale of the natives--and I for one do not wish unnecessarily to empty their scale--yet I think you ought out of kindness to us to put a little into the scale of the missionaries.
"I have now done these remarks. I have ever since I received your letters at Sydney felt anxious to state to you our real difficulties and the points in which I differed from you in a becoming and respectful way. How far I have succeeded I must leave to your better judgment. I only can assure you with perfect truth that I have had no intention to offend you. It is my earnest desire to be at peace with you and to act with you. In my observations on your public transactions with respect to New Zealand, I allude chiefly to hastiness and a want of method and arrangement. I am sure I cannot impute to you any want of good intention. I am well convinced of your piety, integrity, and zeal in the cause of Christ. I do not venture to prefer my opinion to yours, but as every man is entitled to his opinion and I to mine, I venture to give it to you, hoping you will take it in good part and believe it to be my sincere and fervent prayer that every blessing and success may attend you.
"The feelings of the whole of the missionaries are wounded at your unreasonable expectations, and they are of opinion it is both in your place and in your power to heal them. I beg particularly to be understood that the above remarks are not intended as charges against you but as suggestions for your consideration."
A few weeks later, on November 12th, 1821, Kendall wrote to the Secretary, assuring him of his constant efforts on behalf of the Society's work. "As our summer season is now coming on," he began, "when I can bear being out of doors during the night, I intend to itinerate occasionally, being fully convinced
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that at the present there is no other mode of communicating religious instruction to the natives of New Zealand. If the natives run away from us we must follow them as well as we can until we can bring them back. We are undoubtedly, all of us, under very discouraging circumstances, but there is no reason to be utterly cast down. For my own part I shall, if it pleases God to bless my endeavours, collect a number of children together again, whom I shall teach under my own roof as soon as the wild fits of the natives have a little subsided."
On January 17th, 1822, Marsden replied at considerable length to Kendall's strictures upon his conduct towards the New Zealand Mission. "Though I have little time and less inclination," he wrote, "to reply to what you have stated, yet were I to be wholly silent the Society might think me guilty of all you have laid to my charge. I have no objection, nor ever had any, to the missionaries either as a body or individually complaining of my conduct to them as agent to the Church Missionary Society whenever they feel themselves aggrieved. This they have a right to do in common justice to themselves; only let them state their complaints fairly. I do not consider that it is fair to say I was angry without stating the cause. You are well aware what has been the chief cause of our difference. I was in hopes before your departure from Port Jackson that the matter relative to the nefarious traffic in muskets and powder with the natives was finally settled. This would have removed all cause of contention: as I learn this unfortunately is not the case, no arguments, no considerations whatever, can induce me to unite cordially with persons whose opinions and conduct are so much at variance with the dictates of my own conscience.
"It is not necessary I should again repeat my sentiments to you upon this painful subject, I have so often and so long expressed them to you all, and with that warmth and indignation which my feelings at the moment excited. My heart has been set upon the civilization and evangelization of the inhabitants of New Zealand for the last seventeen years, and is still set upon the same object. I most firmly believe that this important work will be accomplished, but not by carnal weapons such as muskets and gunpowder; these will bring a curse and not a blessing upon all who are involved in such an unchristian warfare, according to my judgment. The cries of the blood of innocent children who are sacrificed by these means, the tears, lamentations, and suffering of surviving widows and orphans, many of whom you must have seen and heard as well as myself in our various journeys through the different parts of New Zealand, will be heard by the Judge of all the earth sooner or later.
"Admitting that you approve of your own conduct and that your conscience is void of offence and that many of your friends in England agree with you in the opinion that the barter
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of muskets and gunpowder is necessary to conciliate the minds of the chiefs, I am not bound to adopt the same opinion; and, if as agent to the Church Missionary Society I am persuaded that such a barter is incompatible with the principles of the Christian religion and the express injunction of the Society, I have a right to condemn it. Should the Society approve of this barter my opinion would be the same.
"With respect to the natives bartering with the ships for muskets and gunpowder, in this I have never interfered, nor was I called upon to interfere with their policy further than to point out the evils of war and murder which these weapons encourage, and this I laboured to do in every part of New Zealand which I visited. Christian missionaries are not to be put upon a footing with masters of whalers in their intercourse with the natives.
"You contend the New Zealanders are a free people. I never said they were not free. May I not ask you, are not we equally free? If we have no authority to compel them to leave off this traffic, they have none to compel us to carry on. You think I shall regret having interfered in this matter; I cannot see why I should. I was charged in every part of New Zealand by the natives whom I visited with sending missionaries to the Bay of Islands who put muskets into the hands of their enemies to kill them. These charges I could not deny, and it was very painful for me to see the widow and the orphan under such a charge. You express your opinion that there are not much less than 2,000 stand of arms amongst the natives. You must be aware no tribe can ever make war against the natives of the Bay of Islands, or defend their own districts against such an armed force.
"1. With respect to the state of the New Zealanders as a barbarous nation, I entertain the same opinion I ever did, viz., that no savage nation under heaven is more prepared for receiving instruction of every kind than they are. The ultimate success of the Mission must depend upon the pouring out of the Divine Spirit upon them. It is for doing wrong and not for doing little that I have blamed the missionary.
"2. You observe 'your public censures are apt to exceed the limits of godly admonition.' Was there not a cause, nay, more than that, many causes, to compel me 'to exceed the limits of godly admonition.' Did not you and your colleague, Mr. Hall, complain, and that justly, of Mr. King that he would not so much as make or mend a shoe for you and your families when you were distressed for them and your children going barefoot? When I called a special meeting to examine into the matter did not Mr. King declare that he would neither mend nor make a shoe for any of you? I would ask you, how did he spend his time? He was there supported at the Society's expense and literally did nothing for it. Did he not complain of the want of animal food when he
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sent a cask of pork on board one of the whalers and received in payment rum and gunpowder? How was it possible for me to suppress my feelings at such conduct as this? I might call to your recollection many unpleasant transactions which wounded my feelings above measure, but I forbear in hopes that they may be buried in oblivion.
"3. In answer to which I beg to say I think no blame can be attached to me as far as relates to your want of necessaries and accommodation. I sent the best carpenters and sawyers I could meet with in this country to assist you. The carpenters you have are all excellent workmen. Two out of three would, as far as I know of them, be an ornament to any religious society. Mr. Puckey 1 is a very quiet man, a man of great ability as a carpenter as well as in other respects. He is fond of the natives and the natives are very fond of him. Truly pious men are not to be met with in these settlements. I have always sent you the best I could get, and if they do not act properly I cannot help this. If the carpenters come away you will not get three such well-behaved men again from this Colony. The wants of no missionaries in any part of the heathen world could have been more regularly and abundantly supplied than what yours have been since you have resided in New Zealand, and on that ground you have no cause to complain.
"You recommended me 'to commend the poor missionaries for the little they are enabled to do, and not to crush them with reproach for the much they cannot do, or leave undone.' I have ever felt it my greatest pleasure to give the missionary credit for what he has done, and I believe my public and private letters will bear me out in making this assertion; at the same time I cannot shut my eyes and ears to what is notoriously wrong in the conduct of a missionary or suffer it to pass unnoticed while I have the responsibility of the agency upon me.
"4. You think 'I expect too much from means of a temporal nature,' and that I am more zealous about agriculture than churches and schools, and that I have always attended cheerfully to applications made to me about cattle, etc. I can easily reply to these remarks. I consider true religion of the first importance, and the means to promote it. To build churches and schools is not so easily within my reach as to encourage agriculture. Churches and schools are not to be built without European labourers. Though I have sent you the best men I could procure in the Colony as mechanics, yet you have blamed me that I have not sent you better. If you wait for churches and schools until you get good, pious men to build them from hence, I fear they will not be found in my day. The cattle I have at my own command, and I have sent them without application from any person, notwithstanding several have been unnecessarily killed. I have seen want enough in this Colony formerly to convince me of the vast importance of
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cattle in a new settlement. I have seen when a single cow would have sold for £140. Nothing but agriculture can render you independent of the natives for provisions of every kind.
"5. I only know of one man when I was in New Zealand attached to the Mission who was guilty of swearing, and that was James Boyle. This man I discharged for his improper conduct, though he did not return with me. That was not my fault.
"6. I am aware you are at the mercy of the natives, as well as your property, but I would ask what great injury have they done yet.
"I approve of your itinerating amongst the natives. Nothing will tend more to increase your influence amongst them than your visiting them from tribe to tribe. I spent much of my time in this way when in New Zealand, to the general satisfaction of the natives as well as my own.
"7. Ranghee Hoo (Rangihoua) was the place fixed upon by me for a missionary settlement on my first visit. On my second visit it was condemned as an improper situation, but not by me. It has its advantages and disadvantages. The greatest inconvenience is the want of timber. If the Society at Home and you approve of it, I can have no objection. How you intend to have a church built if the carpenters return to Port Jackson I know not. Perhaps your present school may answer for a time.
"I shall now reply to the latter part of your letter, which you call of a personal nature.
"I certainly did say I would bring you before a magistrate to account for the muskets which had been put on board the Dromedary and directed for you, and which you received, unless you exculpated me from all knowledge of them. * This at first you showed no inclination to do, but on the contrary objected to do it. I am too old and have seen too much of mankind to be annoyed by persons 'quizzing me,' as you please to term it, but I was annoyed by the muskets being found on board a King's ship along with the Society's stores and reported afterwards to Governor Macquarie and the King's Commissioner, before whom I was examined on the subject. This I suppose you call 'quizzing,' but I viewed the subject in a more serious light. I could not deny the fact nor could I explain it. Here the matter rested, but my character was involved in doubt, because it was supposed I must have known of the muskets. As I stood with the Governor any reports prejudicial to me would be grateful to him. 2 You say I had 'a share directly or indirectly in the disposal of muskets.' I deny that I have directly or indirectly for some years past sanctioned the disposal of a single musket. On my first visit to New Zealand I admit I gave a musket to Shunghee (Hongi), and I believe Captain Thompson two or three years afterwards agreed to give one to Wyedua (Wairua), but this he did without my sanction. I have used all the means in my power, as you well know, to prevent this
* Vide supra, p. 159.
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traffic, as I have ever condemned it. When I told you at Port Jackson that you must no longer traffic with the natives with muskets, that it was contrary to the Society's orders, you replied you would neither obey me nor the Society's orders, that there was no act of Parliament to prevent you and you would act according to your own opinion, which I understand you have done by disposing of more than twenty stand of arms since your return, with a quantity of gunpowder. It is in vain for me either to censure or to entreat on this subject, but I think the day will come when you will be very sorry for these things.
"With respect to your daughters, this originated entirely with yourself. You told me your daughters should teach in the school if the Society would make them some compensation; £10 per annum was mentioned for each of your daughters as a remuneration. I am sure you will recall this to your recollection. With respect to the want of food for the children in the school, you applied for a quantity of rice, which I sent, and there were several bags when Mr. Butler arrived, which I saw in your possession. Perhaps you may have forgotten this circumstance.
"I am happy to hear Mr. Hall and you have settled your differences. They were carried to a lamentable length. I have ever had a great regard for Mr. Hall as a very industrious, persevering man, and I have always thought that few men were better qualified for beginning a mission in a heathen country than he was. With respect to your postscript, I cannot see how that can be correct as it applies to the whole. Several in the Mission I have never found in the least fault with. They have done all they could and have never received from me the slightest expression of disapprobation. There are only four of you that I have ever had any contention with, viz., yourself, the Rev. Mr. Butler, Messrs. Hall and King. I disapproved of all your conduct as it regarded your traffic with the natives in muskets and gunpowder. This was the principal cause of our difference, and it was the same cause that created such mutual quarrels with each other, and the effects will never cease till the cause is removed. Mr. Butler has toiled hard and suffered much anxiety in his way. So has Mr. Hall and so have you, and for these things you have all merited commendation.
"Were you to ask me my opinion of you as a Christian and as a man, I should say as a Christian you possessed many valuable qualifications for a missionary amongst the heathen, but these only shine forth occasionally, like the sun in a winter's day. As a man I would say you were under the dominion of very strong, angry passions, and obstinately bent upon following your own opinion upon all occasions, regardless of future consequences. You appear never to suspect that your opinion may be erroneous. This has been the rock upon which you have often struck and upon which I fear you will continue to strike against all remonstrance, till you are involved in difficulties out of which you may
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not easily escape. I am aware of the difficulties you and your colleagues have to contend with. They are many and great, but not greater than might be expected in your situations. A soldier gains no honour while he rests in his barracks. It is in the field of battle he must win military glory. I beg to conclude my letter with my best wishes to you and your colleagues, and while I cannot but condemn that line of conduct which you so obstinately persevere in, and which appears to me so directly opposite to that of our Lord's, Who came to save men's lives and not destroy, I shall not cease to pray for you and wish you every happiness both in this world and the next."
To this letter Kendall replied on February 26th, 1822, in terms which showed him to be determined to continue his vindication of the traffic in muskets and powder. "I freely agree with you," he wrote, "in the opinion that the evangelization of the New Zealanders will not be accomplished by carnal weapons. War and bloodshed are also much to be deplored, and will be so by every pious Christian wherever such evil exists on the earth. Were I a Quaker I should also say that the profession or trade of a gunsmith is an unlawful or unchristian one, and that bartering with muskets or selling them anywhere is incompatible with the principles of the Christian religion. Why will you not argue fairly? I confess I am not a little surprised that you should as agent for this Mission take a view only of that side of the question in debate in which all good men must agree with you, and at the same time remain perfectly silent on the other side, where the propriety and practice of selling muskets and powder to the natives of New Zealand in preference to savage weapons can only be supported and justified. Namely, 'weapons of war being almost the only medium of exchange at present between Englishmen and New Zealanders, it therefore must be desirable to dispose of such weapons, if any, in our necessary bartering intercourse, amongst the latter as are of a merciful nature.' If those who would, after mature deliberation, allow muskets, are inconsistent, those whose fine feelings would not allow them are much more so. I can mention a case in point. A person here who does not approve of the disposal of muskets amongst the natives, and for whom both you and I entertain, I am sure, the greatest respect, immediately on my return to New Zealand enquired if there were no small hatchets amongst the Society's stores on board the Westmorland, adding 'that small hatchets sold so well amongst the natives that it would be desirable to write for a large quantity in order that we might be well supplied.' Now these hatchets are all of them used by the natives as weapons of war. We all of us know this to be a fact. You know it to be a fact yourself. As these hatchets are not used as weapons of war by the English, I suppose it was on the same account that the cries of the innocent children whose parents had been butchered by them did not occur to you as
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distinctly as those whose parents had been shot. I say not too much when I assert that your observations and your tender feelings are not in unison. There may be men in the world who could view with pleasure a human body cut up and mangled with a hatchet in preference to being dispatched with a musket ball, but not Mr. Marsden. I am fully convinced that the New Zealanders will be in a savage state so long as they use savage weapons; and although muskets will not convert them to Christianity yet I believe they may on certain occasions use them even after they become Christians. It is only as we part with merciful weapons in preference to savage ones, and this as a medium of exchange for the needful property and services we require, that we have been led to part with them at all. My own conduct will bear me out that I suffered many privations, and suffered them a long time, before I parted with a single musket. And could I now part with dollars, prints, etc., etc., as easy, I would never part with another.
"Your argument respecting agriculture is indeed very plausible, but for the above considerations you ought either to have settled the missionaries here as free from the concerns of the world as the Moravian missionaries are, or otherwise you ought not to have blamed us for making use of, as well as other men, the usual articles of exchange in order to encourage it.
"The people at and near the Bay of Islands are bent upon subduing the natives of the whole northern island. How can we help this? We do not persuade the people to go to war! It is perhaps an act of Providence and a mercy that we are under the protection of so strong a party of natives. We should in the event of their being weak have probably been subdued with them. Do you think that the natives at a distance are less inclined to war, or that they are less cruel than those around us towards their vanquished enemies? I beg leave once for all to observe that we have nothing to do with the New Zealand wars. There is not one of us, in my opinion, but may not remain secure at New Zealand and also may be useful. For my own part I have only one purpose in contemplation, namely, here I at present live, and here I wish to die.
"I think I have said all that can be said either in excuse for or as to the expediency of the conduct of the missionaries in bartering with muskets and powder amongst the natives. The Society have a right to condemn me and my colleagues if they think we have done wrong, for we are their servants. There is one observation which I must, however, make to you. You seem to be more afraid of suffering in your good name and reputation respecting the above question than you are desirous of explaining the truth, putting the matter in its proper light, and cleaving to your New Zealand colleagues. Have you forgotten already your own amendment of my answer to the Commissioner, namely, 'a musket has
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a greater tendency to give a civil feeling to a native mind than the use of a savage weapon.'
"I am now glad I opened my mind freely to you in my letter by the Westmorland, and I thank you for your reply although it is a sharp one. I believe if I had always had you with me at New Zealand we should have agreed very well. You would then have known my wants and would have cheerfully supplied them. Nor would any misrepresentations have occurred in which my name has ever been brought into question respecting those unpleasant transactions which have wounded your feelings so severely. I assure you I cordially esteem you for your pious and disinterested service in the cause of our common Lord, and I fervently pray that it may please God to confer the richest blessings upon yourself and family."
While thus vindicating to Marsden his conduct with regard to trade, however, Kendall had lapsed into an immoral manner of life which was the cause of grave concern to his fellow missionaries. He had collected materials for building a church, and desired William Hall to erect the building. Hall, irate at his colleague's inconsistency, refused to assist in the matter. Kendall thereupon addressed him, under date March 13th, 1822, reproaching him for his lack of friendly co-operation, while ignoring the real reason for his estrangement from his colleagues:--
"I cannot," he wrote, "in the first place, avoid expressing my sorrow that although we have now been connected in this Mission more than eight years there never yet has been a time in which we have cordially united in carrying on any work of importance in the service of the Society. I now, as you have heard at the committee held at Te Kedi (Kerikeri) the other day, am about to erect a small building for a church. Most of the materials are ready for carrying on the building. How desirable, therefore, and how gratifying would it be to me, and I may also venture to say it would be equally so to the Christian world, if you would now come forward, bury with me, as we ought to do, all past animosities in oblivion, and assist me in the work? If you have at any time been censured by the Society, have you not now a fair opportunity of regaining their esteem and of becoming most truly popular? Whatever minister may preach in it, would it not be a pleasing satisfaction to you to recollect hereafter that you assisted in building the first place of worship at New Zealand erected solely for that purpose? If you disapprove of anything that is carrying on in either settlement in respect to one resolution of the Society, you ought in my opinion equally to disapprove of another sad breach of the Society's instructions in which many of us have been guilty, and so loudly to disclaim against it, namely, neglecting to do our appointed work and spending our time in doing little or nothing. I am really convinced--and I myself am ashamed of it--that this has been a great fault amongst us at New
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Zealand. I am sure, my dear sir, I cannot accuse you of idleness, but let me ask you one question. How often and how long have you at any time personally exerted yourself in carrying on any public building at either of the Society's settlements in New Zealand? If, however, you persist in declining your services, I must go on as well as I can. I cannot, perhaps, redeem my own mis-spent time better than by assisting any friend that may consider the erection of a church worthy of his personal attention and exertion."
Meanwhile Francis Hall, a man who had already earned the esteem and respect of all his colleagues, felt it incumbent upon him to endeavour to compel Kendall to realise the enormity of his conduct, and to recall him to a sense of his duty to his family, the Mission, and himself. "We are commanded," he wrote to Kendall on April 3rd, 1822, "to reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all long suffering, and while I do so, I would tremble for myself when I acknowledge that if I have been kept since I have sojourned in this land of darkness and sin, it is alone by the Almighty power of my God.
"God Almighty, Who sees through the crooked policy and crafty devices of men and often punishes sin with sin, has suffered your feet to slip. Nay, you have greatly fallen. You have acted derogatory to God's honour, unbecoming your high vocation and the Christian character, and in a way likely to bring down the vengeance of the Most High upon the cause you are engaged in and bring misery and ruin upon yourself and family. Your conduct is calculated to make angels and Christian men weep and devils and New Zealanders greatly to rejoice."
In spite of the reproaches of his colleagues, however, Kendall, in strangely paradoxical fashion, abandoned neither his vicious mode of life nor his idea of building a church. His written application to Marsden that men should be sent from New South Wales to aid him in his project brought a stern letter from Marsden, who had become acquainted with the facts and took the only course open to him by suspending the offender from the work of the Mission. "I received your letter signed by yourself and Mr. Cowell, in which you make an application to me to send you two carpenters to build you a church," Marsden wrote to Kendall on June 11th, 1822. "When I compare your letter with the minutes of the last committee at Keddee Keddee (Kerikeri) I am much astonished that you should venture to make such an application to me under the circumstances you were in at the time you wrote. It clearly appears from these minutes that you are living in open and avowed fornication with a heathen in the midst of the poor heathens amongst whom you dwell. The statements of the minutes upon this melancholy subject are supported by the general voice of all who visit New Zealand as well as by the natives who are at Parramatta. I would ask you what can you want a church for?
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Can a minister living in fornication want a church? What do you intend to teach? Who will come to hear you preach? Is not your crime a public disgrace to the sacred ministry to which you have been set apart? I know not what to say to you. The deed is done. You have ruined yourself in this life and lost your honour and sacred rank in society, which you never can regain to the day of death. You must be sensible that I have suffered many painful hours and days and months on account of the misconduct of some in the Mission, but this is the most painful circumstance that has happened.
"I beg to inform you that your application for a church I am bound by every principle of religion and propriety to refuse, and at the same time I feel it my painful duty to communicate to you, as agent to the Church Missionary Society, that all intercourse between you and me must now cease so long as those serious charges against you stand uncontradicted, and further that you will now consider yourself suspended from your duty as a missionary belonging to the Church Missionary Society until the pleasure of the Society is known. I feel it my duty also to call upon you to deliver up all the property in your possession of a public nature to the existing committee for the time being. While I lament your fall more than any other man, on account of your distressed family, your own precious soul, and the Mission, I am compelled to withdraw all public confidence, countenance, and support from you until I receive instructions from the committee at Home."
To one who realises the unhappy circumstances of Kendall's domestic life at this time, the following letter, written to his wife from Hokianga on July 30th, 1822, gives striking evidence of the extraordinarily complex nature of its author and his astonishing powers of self-deception:--
" My Dear Love,
"Do not cast yourself down at any marks of neglect or contempt which the settlers may manifest towards you. I am your truest friend on earth, and although you are certainly suffering on my account, and that most severely, yet you may perhaps be thankful that you are indebted to me, under the blessing of Almighty God, for some of your richest consolations in religion. Look throughout the whole of the Psalms, the 77th and 103rd in particular. You will find a consolation in reading the experience of the Psalmist in all his distresses and in his sins too; and look in the Gospel and you will observe the amazing and unmerited love of the blessed Saviour towards every humble, lowly, and penitent believer in Him. Let us also hope well concerning our children; perhaps some unforeseen happiness is reserved for us in them. I long to see the young child. Indeed I long to see you all. Our children have been instructed in early life to remember their Creator. May God bless them and preserve them from the evil
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that is in the world. I do not wish to enter into any more disputes with the missionaries if I can possibly avoid them. If we are not determined to give over we may live and die in a state of bitterness, unfriendliness, and altercation. Let them go on in their own way, only let them take nothing from us. If they would only think for themselves, they would soon see that they all of them will have enough to do to bear themselves up in the day of trouble. I must conclude by saying I am perfectly satisfied with your discreet and prudent deportment during the late agitating scenes through which we have passed. Do not be discouraged. Hope for the best."
Meanwhile Francis Hall, disheartened, apparently, by the entire situation in the New Zealand Mission, had decided to sail for Home. * Kendall himself had now reached a point when he was prepared to acknowledge his faults and ask forgiveness of those whose faith in him had been shattered, and particularly of Marsden, who had once regarded him as the chief hope of the Mission. On August 1st, 1822, he wrote to Marsden from the Hokianga River, expressing his self-abasement and his resolutions for the future. He does not seem to have realised yet that there could be no future for him in the service of the Church Missionary Society. "I have now been three months on board the Providence and amongst the natives of the river," he wrote. "My object in coming here has been to assist the natives in their intercourse with Captain Herd --neither he nor any of the ship's company understand the New Zealand language--and also to prepare the way for the future residence of missionaries amongst them. Should you sanction my removal with my family from Ranghee Hoo (Rangihoua) to this place, I shall be happy to come agreeable to your desire, and if you do not feel at liberty to allow me a carpenter I shall submit. My eldest son will assist me as well as he can to build a dwelling house. I could wish to make an attempt to form a small establishment here with the assistance of another settler who may be disposed to unite his efforts to mine, and I trust by so doing I shall be enabled to show you in time that I still entertain an earnest desire to promote the spiritual and temporal welfare of the natives. It will be better for me to enter as little as possible into transactions of a commercial nature, for you well know that the natives are solicitous about nothing so much as muskets and powder, and I have been too weak and wanted sufficient resolution to resist their importunities, and although it is very difficult indeed to obtain a general supply of potatoes and pork without disposing of such articles, yet as they are not allowed by the Society I must acknowledge my past error and forbear in future to dispose of them.
* Francis Hall ultimately sailed from the Bay of Islands on December 5th, 1822, in the St. Michael (Captain Beveridge).--R. J. Barton, Earliest New Zealand, p. 249; MS. Letters and Journals of Rev. John Butler, Hocken Library, Dunedin.
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"You are perhaps much discouraged with respect to the present concerns of the Mission. I frankly own that I am greatly in arrears when I speak of a school. I have many articles by me towards the management of one, but I have neither been sufficiently tranquil in my own mind nor have the native children been lately sufficiently settled to attend to instruction. If you will allow me to come here I will try again to raise a school. I must not, however, dissemble the fact that the natives are at present in a very unsettled state, and they are so puffed up with their own notions of independence and strength that it will be some time before they are brought so low as to entertain correct views of their dependence, wretchedness, and insignificance, and the value of the blessings which are intended for them.
"Captain Herd 3 has procured a cargo of timber at Hokianga. Perhaps some captains of colonial vessels may be induced to put into this river occasionally. If this should be the case, such supplies will be easily obtained from Port Jackson as may be wanted in a settlement here."
The Committee of Missionaries at New Zealand had, in the meantime, intimated to Kendall that they must take the necessary measures against him, in view of the pronouncement of Marsden on his case. This intimation roused Kendall to write to the Rev. John Butler, Chairman of the Missionary Committee, in somewhat heated terms. * "While I desire to sit myself down in silence under the severe sentence of suspension and desertion, as pronounced by the Rev. Samuel Marsden, as far as the missionary settlers here and himself, as agent of the Society, are concerned," he wrote, "yet I must now entreat the committee of missionaries to suspend all further and future proceedings against me except such as are not only Christian but open and manly. I own with self-abasement and abhorrence that I am a sinner in the sight of God, but I may perhaps be allowed to suggest, without incurring the charge of vain boasting, that my last ten years of incessant toil in the service of the Society would, in my opinion, with feeling men, entitle me to a little consideration. I boast not when I remind you that at a time when everyone else believed it to be a desperate adventure, I was one of the first missionaries who ventured to embark with my family for New Zealand. I was one of the first missionaries who brought over with them the word of life and salvation; I was the first missionary who slept on shore among the natives; the first missionary who attempted to fix the native language and to introduce into print the first rudiments of the Christian religion; and also the first missionary to introduce prayer in a language which the New Zealanders could understand.
"It is true I have carried my measures of conciliation and social intercourse with the natives to a criminal excess, and I have
* Quoted in R. J. Barton Earliest New Zealand, pp. 211-213.--MS. Letters and Journals of Rev. Samuel Butler, Hocken Library, Dunedin.
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Vue Interieure du Pa de Kahouwera (Kahuwera).
From the Atlas of the Voyage de la Corvette 1'Astrolabe (Paris, 1830).
This view gives no indication of the formidable earthworks which were a feature of all tribal strongholds, but which are hidden in this case by the crest to the left and by the palisade in the middle distance. Across the foreground stretches a sloping breakwind fence, under cover of which, to the left, are the roofs of two semi-subterranean store-houses. To the right is a dwelling house of the common type but of more than average size. Further to the right is a storage platform (whata), and on the extreme right a smaller dwelling with curved roof. This feature is present in a house in the middle distance, and with variation in a third whare beside it. It is figured elsewhere by d'Urville, but does not seem to have been recorded by any other observer. Among the remaining structures are four semi-subterranean buildings, probably store-houses, and a fine example of the curved breakwind or shelter. The central post in two of the doorways is probably due to error by the engraver.
The exact location of this pa has not been determined. It was probably one of three pas situated on the western headland forming the entrance to Paroa Bay.
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not done those things which I ought to have done, but the doing wrong is not any rule why I should be prevented in future from doing right, and I mention my conviction with reverence, that I do think Almighty God has something still for me to do at New Zealand, or why should He have been so merciful to me? It pleased God to spare my life when I was on my passage eight years ago from Port Jackson to Van Diemen's Land--a person was shooting at a mark behind which I was seated, and I removed just at the moment when he proceeded to draw the trigger of his pistol. It pleased God to spare my life when I was on my first visit to the Bay of Islands, and in imminent danger of being drowned: when I was taken up out of the water, I was at my last gasp. * It pleased God to spare my life when I was on my return from New Zealand to Port Jackson. I was quarrelling with the captain respecting some natives. He attempted to fire off his pistol at me twice; the piece missed fire; if he had succeeded in firing it off the third time at me, I must have perished, but he was providentially prevented by the chief officer. I own I erred exceedingly on that day, and the language I made use of neither became me as a man nor as a Christian, yet it pleased the Lord to spare me, and in the midst of deserved judgment to remember me in His mercy.
"It pleased God to spare my life when I was fired at by Walter Hall; his pistol was pressed hard against my body, but the contents passed by my side. ** It also pleased God to again spare my life when I was a few weeks ago in danger of being drowned in the River Hokianga. I desire accordingly to bless His Holy Name for His continued kindness and preservation.
"I devoutly pray that neither you nor your children may experience the same trials which have fallen to my lot since I resided in this country; you will then be free from any bitter heartaches which attend the person whom nature is permitted to buffet and make miserable."
To Francis Hall, who acted as secretary to the committee, he wrote, on October 7th, 1822, a note in which he explained to some extent the views which had led him to address himself to the New Zealand missionary committee. "I think I am right," he wrote, "in entreating the committee to suspend all future proceedings against me except such as are open and manly. I am much easier of access than I am supposed to be, and there can be no unjust complaint in this, that all the charges which have been brought forward against me have been chiefly through the medium of native children who were in the habit of going backward and forward with reports from house to house. The most secret recesses in my dwelling house have been pried into through the same medium, and it is an absolute fact that those charges above
* Vide supra, p. 65.
** William Hall fully describes this incident.--Vide infra, p. 246.
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referred to, which have been attempted to be confirmed, could not be substantiated by my own wife or children, much less by anyone else.
"It is very proper, I think, for us to take shame unto ourselves that the peace of these settlements has been greatly impaired by our communications with natives respecting each other. I can see it by your own letter that something had been said which irritated your feelings, throughout the first two pages, and this could only be learned through the medium of natives who were not acquainted with facts, but who were led by appearances.
"Be not angry with me when I tell you, for I love you as I love all good men, that a system of tale-bearing has been carried on, especially in this settlement, ever since the settlers landed on the island, and instead of being blessed with general union and concord we have been plagued with perpetual strife and slander. If I am one of those unhappy beings who are guilty, I wish I may repent of it, but I pray that others may examine themselves."
Kendall's final letter for the year 1822 is addressed to the Rev. Josiah Pratt and is a defence of the conduct of his friend Hongi and his warriors. It is dated from the Bay of Islands, December 28th, 1822.
"My friend Mr. Nicholas," * he said, "has written a letter to me which has been forwarded by the Asp and in which he states 'that the last accounts from us (transmitted by Captain Brind) have so much discouraged the Society that they feel inclined to give up the Mission altogether, and that the horrid details of Shunghee's (Hongi) ferocity, his cannibalism, and his suffering the settlement at Te Kedi Kedi (Kerikeri) to be plundered by his own people, have caused considerable alarm to those who take an active part in the affairs of the Society, and, as he (Mr. Nicholas) fears, have tended to relax their exertions in favour of the Mission.' Now I will maintain it, and I have lived with a large family of young children eight years at New Zealand, that the savage ferocity, cannibalism, etc., of the natives not extending to us, nothing ought to discourage us from going on in our work and continuing the Mission. Shunghee and his friends often go to war, but what in the world have we to do with this? He is no more ferocious than other chiefs are, and what is the use of continually harping upon the word 'cannibalism' when the origin of it arises from the notion of sacrifices. It was a settler at Te Kedi Kedi, and not the whole settlement, whom Shunghee suffered to be partially plundered. Shunghee was highly offended because none of the settlers wrote a letter in his favour when he embarked for England three years ago. He was also offended at one of the settlers. Moreover, when the natives are offended with sailors, as they sometimes are, they will sometimes strip off part of their clothes, and however we may think differently, they think themselves in
* John Liddiard Nicholas.--Vide supra, p. 171n.
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the right. For my own part, if I had had nothing to discompose my mind but the conduct of the natives towards me since I have been in this country, I should have had no occasion to complain, but to rejoice and be thankful. As to conversions to Christianity, we cannot force them without using the means. The settlers are only now beginning to speak to the natives upon the subject of religion, not being able to do it before in the New Zealand language so as to be understood by them. I trust the Society will wait patiently, and not give up this country until the Prince of Darkness shakes in his dominions and the name of the Lord Jesus is known and loved by many of its inhabitants."
[Footnotes to Chapter VIII]
