CHAPTER XI. WILLIAM HALL'S CORRESPONDENCE, 1820-32.
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CHAPTER XI
WILLIAM HALL'S CORRESPONDENCE, 1820-32
THE first letter in this series, written on September 13th, 1820, to the Secretary of the Society, is a spirited vindication of Hall's attitude towards the matter of private trade. On March 30th, 1819, all the settlers except Hall had agreed that "private commerce" at the Bay of Islands should cease, and had sent their signed statement to that effect to Marsden. "Hall's name is not to it," commented Marsden, "he is a very stubborn ass and never will be properly broken to the yoke." * Smarting under Marsden's displeasure and the reproof from the Society's Secretary which it evoked, Hall set forth his position as follows:--
"Rev. and Dear Sir,
"I have to acknowledge the receipt of yours, the sight of which quite distressed me, to think that you are so totally unacquainted with the state of the New Zealand Mission; and with that consideration I cannot at all blame you for what you have said, although I must beg leave to say that you are very severe upon me, especially to Mr. Marsden; but I have one great consolation, that I have many witnesses which I hope will lay the truth clearly before you, or otherwise I must have sunk irrecoverably into disgrace, entirely through the calumny and hypocrisy of that 'good man' 1 as I have seen him termed. But as the saying is, truth will out, and I am only sorry that I am under the painful necessity of stating such an unpleasant part of it, as it respects the article which you mention upon the mode of barter with the natives without my signature to it. The signing of it was a thing my conscience would not allow me to do, because it was merely drawn up for self-applause and calculated to blind the eyes of the Society and the public under a cloak of hypocrisy and deceit, which every candid person that has been here at the Bay of Islands will attest the truth of. At the same time that Mr. Kendall drew up that article that you mention, he and Mr. King were pursuing and persisting in that most disgraceful and injurious mode of barter and traffic which he so much outwardly reprobated before you; and as a proof of it, about six months after he had drawn up this article and sent it to you, the ship Martha, Captain Afrey, a South Sea whaler, arrived in the Bay of Islands, and Mr. Kendall went on board and remained seven days and procured one hundred and fifty pounds of gunpowder and eight blunderbusses, and brought them all to his own house to sell to the New Zealanders for his own private purposes, and at the same time he bought a war canoe from Wycaddie (Waikare), a chief of the timber ground, for Captain Afrey, for which they gave one fowling piece and one musket and a bag of powder weighing twenty pounds or upwards.
* Cf. The Letters and Journals of Samuel Marsden, pp. 234-5.
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"And in February last, 1820, when H.M.S. Dromedary arrived in the Bay of Islands with Mr. Marsden on board from Port Jackson, Mr. Kendall and I went on board, and Mr. Kendall had a cask brought up out of the ship's hold directed to him, which he had the assurance to open upon the Dromedary's deck, and took out of it, I am told, six muskets and bayonets before Captain Skinner and his officers and the whole ship's company. I was there, and saw four of the muskets and bayonets myself. Mr. Marsden was so ashamed he did not know where to hide his face, and more so because he had shipped the cask himself under the idea of leather, because it was marked leather upon the head of it. * Mr. Kendall had also a bag of powder containing half a hundredweight, at the same time. Now if this is not sufficient to convince you I could tell you more, but I am weary with the unpleasant subject. When Mr. Marsden visited New Zealand and brought out the Society's rules and regulations respecting trade, Mr. Kendall and Mr. King both signed them previous to Mr. Kendall procuring all these muskets and powder before mentioned.
"Now in respect to myself I can conscientiously assert that I never disposed of either muskets or powder or any other kind of barter for my own private purposes as you have intimated, but I further beg leave to say that I was under necessity of purchasing trade at my own expense, merely to accomplish the work that Mr. Marsden requested me to do, my portion of trade supplied by the Society being considerably insufficient. Whenever I parted with anything it was merely to cover my own expenses and to prosecute the work, and as an instance of it, I had at one time 60 logs of timber and several thousand feet of sawn plank all ready upon the beach for the Active, which was all sent to Marsden to be sold in order to assist in repaying the vessel's expenses, from which I never received the value of one farthing profit either directly or indirectly, nor never expected any; and all the trade that I received for the support of my house for any one year would never procure one third part of that timber if I had never expended one single article of it for the use of my house, and this is only one instance out of several.
"When the Rev. Mr. Leigh from Port Jackson visited New Zealand for the benefit of his health, and afterwards returned to England for the same, both before he left New Zealand and afterwards, in public and private company, he frequently said he did not see anyone doing anything for the Mission but myself. I hope you will read this letter with some degree of sympathy, and what you see amiss in it impute to the wounded feeling of,
"Rev. and Dear Sir,
"Your most unworthy servant,
"WM. HALL."
* Vide supra, p. 159.
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On December 28th, 1820, Hall again addressed the Secretary with reference to the state of the New Zealand Mission and his own difficulties owing to the demands made upon his services as a tradesman by his colleagues. "Mr. Marsden and Mr. Butler came here," he wrote, "with an idea that none of us had been doing our duty, and Mr. Butler drove us, or wanted to drive us, like a parcel of porters or bargemen, as Mr. Marsden expressed it. But those joiners that he brought with him from Port Jackson would not allow him to do so, and they got the mastery over him entirely, and since then he is very much dissatisfied and I believe that if Mr. Marsden had not been here he would have left New Zealand before now. * He lives at Kiddee Kiddee (Kerikeri) along with Mr. F. Hall and Mr. Kemp, three joiners from Port Jackson, and two or three European labourers. I was there last week towing up a raft of timber for the use of the building. I went into Mr. Butler's house, and he and Mrs. Butler were quite in a fret, saying that they lived in a pigsty, and that everyone could get a house but them, and that nobody had been so ill off at New Zealand as they had been. I told them it was not so, for we have been much worse situated than ever they had been yet, and that they were never exposed to the natives, as we were when we came first, without a piece of level ground to build a house upon, or a bush cleared away where it was to stand, or a tree fallen to build it with, but when they came we took them all into our houses, and all their property. Mr. Butler's family and Mr. Marsden came to our house, and they lived with us nearly six months. We paid them every respect and attention possible; we even gave up our own bed to Mr. and Mrs. Butler and slept as we could, and when buildings were put up at the Kiddee Kiddee, Mr. Butler's family went into two rooms in the end of the store until a better house could be got. They are about 10 feet by 14, and 8 feet high; they are both floored, and have glazed sashes hung with hinges. He has also a detached kitchen with enclosed fowlyards, pigsty, and every other convenience.
"Mr. Butler wants a house built 40 feet long, 16 feet wide, and 20 feet high, with a verandah at the back part of it, supported with columns and enclosed with palisading, and a room of 8 feet square under each end of the verandah. The house is to be two storeys high, with a hall and a staircase in the centre of the building, a circular fanlight, and pilasters at the front door. The doors are all to be six panelled work on both sides, with double faced architraves, double hung sashes, and framed shutters, and every other part corresponding. Mr. Butler complains that he has been nearly 18 months at New Zealand and never got a house yet, but it is more than probable that it will be more than 18 months longer before the house is finished that he wishes to have, as above described.
* Marsden was in New Zealand from 12th August to 9th November, 1819, and from 27th February to 5th December, 1820.
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"We have all our timber to tow with boats between 20 and 30 miles. The natives will not bring it for our mode of payment, neither will they sell us any pork scarcely. They save it all up for the shipping that gives them muskets and powder. We are apprehensive that we will have to be supplied with animal food from New South Wales.
"The most proper people that can be sent here are farmers, schoolmasters, and carpenters. The farmers ought to be fitted out with good teams and farming utensils, and all supported for the first year. This will be an expensive Mission except that we can be supported chiefly from the produce of the ground, and it cannot be done except some people be supplied with the means, and devote their whole time to the work. Schoolmasters are also very much wanted; there is no school in New Zealand, nor has there been any for the last two years. Schools are certainly the ony means that ever will spiritually improve the state of the natives, and as soon as these people land or before it, the carpenters are wanted to procure timber and build their houses. One smith is sufficient for each settlement.
"Now I have written nothing in this letter intentionally against anyone; I have merely stated the plain truth as it stands obvious to all. I hope you will be so kind as to send me the opinion of the committee to say whether it will be better for me to spend all my time in manual labour, as we all are at present, or to devote some part of it at least to the means of spiritual instruction."
On January 19th, 1822, Hall again wrote to the Secretary, giving him an account of the progress of the Mission. "I feel happy to say that we are all going on peaceably both amongst ourselves and with the natives at Rangheehoo (Rangihoua)," he wrote, "but I believe they are not so well at the Kiddee Kiddee (Kerikeri). The natives are troublesome there. Mr. Butler is gone to Port Jackson, and he has taken the greatest part of our working people away with him, corresponding with what he said formerly, using his own words, 'that he would go away and take everybody with him.' This I suppose he might have done if he had been able to have kept the command. However, he has taken James Boyle that was usefully employed in making salt for the settlements, and John Lee that Mr. Marsden sent down about six months ago to work the bullocks, and Thomas Forster that Mr. Marsden also employed as a smith at Rangheehoo, and Messrs. Bean and Fairburn's wives and families, previous to their husbands' going as soon as they have finished his dwelling house which they are at present employed on. He got some of these people's names inserted in the committee book relative to their leaving, but not by general consent. I am sorry for the joiners being taken away from the Mission, as they were a great acquisition to it, being steady workers and good men, and men of prayer. I am afraid it will be long before their places be supplied with better.
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"It is the conversation of the brethren here that Mr. Kendall has been in England and carried everything before him, and has brought out cases of muskets and barrels of powder, and has distributed them among the natives without the least restraint, and continues to do so to the great injury of the Mission. * The others, all endeavouring to abide by the Society's instructions, have been frequently without a piece of animal food to use, while Mr. Kendall is buying it up with muskets and powder and selling it to the different ships in the harbour. He has just bought a boat of Captain Graham, and at the same time he has no school-- he says it is for the want of supplies--nor has there been any in New Zealand for these three years and upwards. However, I do not mean to meddle with him if he sells a musket every day he rises. I merely write for information. I have seen a clause in one of your letters respecting me, alluding to the sale of muskets and powder, saying that 'whosoever did these things should be deprived of the Society's support however otherwise useful they might be.' So far as this applies to me I have not the smallest objection, provided my place were supplied with a better before I leave. I have to inform you that I am much in want of a flag to distinguish the Sabbath day. ** I have found one at my own expense ever since I came to New Zealand. I have at present a red ensign six yards by three, but it is nearly worn out and they are very dear in this country. If your Committee will have the goodness to send me one I shall feel much gratified."
A further letter to the Secretary, dated April 6th, 1822, has many comments upon the evils arising from the sale of muskets and powder and particularly upon the conduct of Kendall in this matter. "I cannot help but feel," Hall wrote, "for your keeping so close upon me in respect to our mode of barter when at the same time I have long since left off the barter of muskets and powder. I have never done anything of the kind since the brethren in general agreed to the Society's instructions upon that head. I wrote a letter and laid it before our committee, saying that I never would dispose of either muskets or powder again except the Society furnished me with them. I hope you will be convinced in time that I have never yet been an advocate for these things, nor ever pleaded in favour of them except for information. Yet notwithstanding this my next door neighbour (Kendall) continues to deal in them without hesitation, and exclusive of the numbers that he and the natives brought from England. He went on board the Minerva, Captain Bell, that touched here about a fortnight ago, and he bought three muskets and a fowling-piece and a barrel of powder one hundred pounds weight. I was present when he received them and so were many more. Mr. Marsden himself declares that he never would have believed that Mr. Kendall was
* Vide supra, p. 172, et seq.
** Vide supra, p. 63.
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doing as he had done and continuing to blind the Society with his flattery and falsehoods, without he had seen it with his own eyes. If you had had the faintest idea of the real character and conduct of Mr. Kendall since he came to New Zealand, you would no more have ordained him than you would have ordained his shoeblack.
"If I were but an hour in your company I would tell you absolute facts respecting the conduct of Mr. Kendall that would make your hair lift your hat. However, I will give you a few hints if my time will admit of it. On Monday, the 3rd of June, 1815, after many infamous dealings between Walter Hall, the smith, and Mr. Kendall they at length quarrelled, and on the day just mentioned Mr. Kendall went to the smith shop and demanded admittance at a door that had been previously barred to keep out the natives, there being another entrance open at the same time at the other side of the house. Hall, hearing Mr. Kendall so violent, ran into his own house and brought out two loaded horse pistols and said he would shoot him if he forced the door open. Notwithstanding this Mr. Kendall put his hands under the bottom of the door and threw it off its hinges. The door fell in and I expected every moment to have seen Mr. Kendall shot. However Hall did not fire, but Mr. Kendall jumped in with a sharp chisel in his hand and pushed Hall backwards into a tub that stood behind him and endeavoured to push the chisel into his belly. Hall's wife being present with a young child in her arms jumped in betwixt them, and struck up Mr. Kendall's arms, and the chisel went into Hall's breast and again into his face and again into his head. Hall at the same time fired the pistol loaded with two balls. It set Mr. Kendall's raincoat on fire and grazed Hall's wife's arm a little above the elbow and they separated, and Hall was taken into his house and was confined six weeks in his room before he was able to do any work.
"And since he came home from England he took a native girl into his house and sleeps with her in preference to his own wife, publicly known to both settlements, and he has acknowledged the whole to Captain Thompson of the Active and confessed his guilt, and still persists in it. There is not a ship comes upon the coast but what knows it from the captain to the cook. Now if this is not sufficient to induce you to take off his gown, I can give you more of the same at some future times should you require it, but I am weary at present with relating such most disgraceful conduct." *
His next letter, dated February 4th, 1824, depicts the peace of the settlement after the storms that had passed over it, and shows that Marsden's disciplinary action in connection with Butler and Kendall had had a salutary effect. "We are going on in our settlement (at Rangihoua) in much peace now," he wrote. "There are only Mr. King and myself. We have a school we attend to
* Vide supra, p. 218, note 2.
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every day, consisting of from 10 to 15 native boys, from 6 to 9 years of age; they are all victualled and clothed. I have been long of an opinion that the education of the native children in schools is one of the most effective means that can be used as a foundation for the Christianizing of the heathen. And after finding myself much worn down by labour, and seemingly not much good resulted from it in a religious point of view, I resolved at length, with Mr. King, to make an effort in the supporting of a school. And when Mr. Marsden came over, our proposals met with his approbation, and he promised his assistance, and likewise resolved that schools be formed at the other settlements also."
The great enterprise of this year, 1824, was the building of the Herald, a work undertaken at the suggestion of the Rev. Henry Williams and carried out by Hall, apparently somewhat reluctantly. In a letter to the Secretary, dated December 30th, 1824, he thus refers to the matter:--"You will see by my journal that my time is almost wholly occupied in labour, not that I murmur at labour, for I have never been used to anything else, but it concerns me to see so little time spent in New Zealand in what ought properly to be the work of the missionaries. There is only one missionary amongst us, and he has become a shipbuilder. * There is no one here that approves of the building of a ship except Mr. Williams. When Mr. Marsden and Mr. Williams asked my opinion respecting the probable expense of such a vessel I told them she would cost £1,000. They hooted the idea, and I am of the same opinion yet, and it is probable she may cost £500 a year every year afterwards. However, when I found they were determined to persevere I have rendered them what assistance I could. They have five carpenters at work besides other workmen as labourers. They have been about four months at work and she is now nearly timbered, almost ready for the planking. She is to be rigged as a schooner. I believe she will not exceed 54 tons burthen.
"I mentioned in a former letter the manner in which our school was conducted; it continues much in the same way yet, and the boys learn very fast. I have just been having evening worship with our natives; they sing hymns in their own language in a most interesting manner. They lead the tunes right away themselves and I join them with the bass."
"In my reflecting moments," Hall continued on February 3rd, 1825, "I am frequently at a loss to know whether I were better to have wrought less and to have spent more time amongst the natives, or to have done as I have done. However, at present I am utterly unable to do either one or the other on account of a fixed complaint in my breast. **
* The Rev. Henry Williams, the only ordained clergyman in the Church Missionary settlement at the time.
** Hall was a martyr to asthma.
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"The natives at Rangheehoo are certainly much civilized, and in general well disposed towards us. Before Mr. Kendall left our settlement they used to rob Mr. King and myself without limitation or restraint, and abuse us and take every advantage of us; but afterwards a perceptible change took place in their conduct. They became quite civil and friendly with us, left off breaking our fences and robbing our gardens, and for a great while past the principal natives in the village have visited our houses in a most civil and peaceable manner, and there is scarcely a day passes but some or other of them either come or send to Mr. King's house or ours for a little tea or bread for their sick; and in such cases we always make a point of supplying them.
"I have mentioned before that I wished to be relieved on account of infirmity and ill-health, but I have lately been much worse from a cold caught by making more free with myself in respect to the work than the precarious state of my health would permit."
In view of this communication the Committee permitted Hall to return to New South Wales. He was in a very weak state, however, and on July 21st, 1825, presented a medical certificate from William Bland, surgeon, who stated that Mr. Hall, of Liverpool Street, Sydney, had been "a considerable time seriously indisposed," and was, "in consequence, at present not in a state fit to leave his house." Hall himself wrote from Sydney to the Secretary as follows on August 22nd, 1825, regarding the state of his health and his general reasons for leaving New Zealand:-- "I am glad the Committee took into consideration the impaired state of my health. If they have received my late letters and the quarterly reports from New Zealand they will see the necessity for my leaving at the time I did--the very weak state in which I was and the cold wet winter season just coming on, and having no medical advice, so that humanly speaking it must have gone very hard with me if I had survived it at all. But not only so, but no family can remain at New Zealand in any kind of place where there is not a man in the house to protect it, not merely for what he might do, but the idea of an able man being about the premises has great influence upon the minds of the natives. They always take advantage of the weak ones, which shows the necessity for all those who go to teach the heathen to carry some authority and influence in their personal conduct, which ought to be acquired by a steady, orderly, masterly deportment in themselves. I am well convinced if they do not possess such a qualification they are much more liable to be insulted and imposed upon. Some persons are so quiet and timid that they will stand until the natives snatch their tools out of their hands and their hats off their heads, but such persons will be of little service in the instruction of the New Zealanders, by either example or precept."
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Hall's health failed to improve. By April, 1826, Marsden reported that he was residing at the Seminary at Parramatta, where he gave instruction to such Maoris as visited New South Wales. * The next letter in the Hall correspondence, dated December 9th, 1829, and written at Black Town, New South Wales, shows that his health had not improved in the interval and that he still found himself entirely unfit for any work except Sunday duty undertaken as a lay preacher.
"I continue to be sorely afflicted with asthma," he wrote, "yet I have the Sabbath duty to perform as Catechist at two chapels every Sunday, for which service I am allowed 10s. per week. One of them is eight miles from where we live, which causes me to keep a horse and an old gig to convey me, and I am frequently obliged to stop in the course of the service and sit down to cough all but suffocated. I enjoyed good health at New Zealand for ten years and wrought very hard; but now I am not able to earn sixpence, and frequently not able to work at all.
"This country is notorious for murders and robberies; it is dangerous to travel upon the roads. People are stopped, robbed, and perhaps shot if any resistance is made, or any attempt to escape, and most frequently about the middle of the day. Rev. Mr. Marsden was stopped in his curricle and robbed of his money, and his house was broken into a few days ago in the night, and property taken out of it. I was also stopped upon the road by two armed men; they took what money I had and my watch, and stripped me of my clothing to the shirt.
"I have hitherto taught the New Zealand natives that have come occasionally to this Colony. I have had four, and taught some of them to read and write well.
"Rev. Mr. Marsden said he would write to your Committee to know if they would be graciously pleased to allow me a small yearly compensation on account of my ill-health and for such service. This was two years ago and I have never heard anything of it since.
"Mr. Marsden will do nothing without your Committee's positive instructions first. However, be this as it may, if your Committee will be pleased to send me out a little cloth or clothing for myself and family I shall be quite satisfied and remember it with gratitude."
On July 15th, 1831, he again wrote from Black Town, New South Wales, to the Secretary, to inform him that in spite of ill-health he continued his duties as Catechist, attending at two stations seven miles apart, where government gangs were making roads. "I am frequently obliged," he wrote, "to sit down in the course of the service under a violent paroxysm of asthma. I have two sons that always accompany me in these duties; one of them is
* Cf. The Letters and Journals of Samuel Marsden, p. 445.
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twelve years of age; he answers as clerk and leads the singing, for which services I receive £26 per annum. My daughter teaches a small school of five or six boarders. We have bought a farm and are endeavouring to improve it, and my wife manages the duties of the whole."
The final note, dated October 28th, 1832, reads:--"My health continues to be very bad and requires much faith and fortitude, but when the relief cometh, it will be a Tree of Life."
