1845 - Wakefield, E.J. Adventure in New Zealand [Vol.I.] - CHAPTER XVI

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CHAPTER XVI.

THE day after I arrived, four vessels entered the harbour together. Among them was the Columbine, a missionary schooner; and the Chelydra, a large barque from the Thames, chartered by Government to remove our army of thirty soldiers to the metropolis.

But it was soon found that this vessel had come on another and more noxious errand. Instructions had come by her to carry out the crimping measure already officially announced; and the instructions were obeyed in the most disagreeable manner. The Police Magistrate, warned by the warm notice which had been taken of the advertisement authenticated by his signature, appeared ashamed or afraid to do the dirty work himself; so the constables were deputed to go about among the newly-arrived emigrants, and try every means of persuading them to engage. The soldiers acted as though they had been in the plot; and assisted in harassing and frightening the new-comers, who had hardly had time to look about them.

The withdrawal of the soldiers, in itself, inflicted no great injury on the settlement; as they were always causing disturbance by their drunken quarrels at every

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CRIMPING OF LABOURERS.

public-house along the beach: but it served to give the fresh immigrants an idea of their unprotected state, and of the indifference with which they were treated by the Lieutenant-Governor; and thus confirmed the false reports and comparisons between the two places made by the constables. It also corroborated the growing belief among the natives, that the Kawana, or "Governor," did not care for the White people here, and that an armed force would never be allowed to afford them protection.

Only once had the soldiers been called upon to act, and then the result must have emboldened the natives to think but little of their efficiency. A native belonging to a settlement near Mana had pilfered from a shop while on a trading visit, and he and his friends laughed at the constables when they came to take him up. The officer and two or three soldiers had been sent to assist the civil power; but the thief disarmed Lieutenant Best and threw him down, so that a bullet shot through the leg of one of his assistants by one of the soldiers probably saved his officer's life, the "mob" of natives having rushed in upon their fallen foe. The thief, however, escaped.

The colonists were thunderstruck at this open manifestation of hostility on the part of Captain Hobson. You could meet no one, of any class, who had not the subject on his lips and anger in every feature. As I have said before, this was the most tender point on which to attack a community whose very principles were that they could secure an efficient supply of labour by paying a high price for their land. The colony stood on the maintenance of a just proportion of land, labour, and capital. The founder of a distant settlement, who was attempting to establish his state with only one of these elements, was destroying our

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balance by taking away the labour which he required; thus not only proving the fallacy of his rival experiment, but unjustly seeking to uphold it by the abstraction of a necessary prop from one which, long before established, had every prospect of success.

It was only a month since a private individual from Van Diemen's Land, who had dared to support his unprincipled conduct by a published justification of his crimping proceedings, had been scouted by the whole community, and held at a distance by its respectable members. How then could the same people bear with a similar conduct on the part of the highest authority over them, as his first act, after awaking from negligence which resembled a total ignorance of their being? With praiseworthy forbearance and patience beyond belief they had borne the long neglect, still hoping for the time when they might convince their Governor, by an affectionate and loyal reception, that he ought to act as their ruler and father. But he could now no longer plead that he wished no harm, if he did no good, to this plantation; he had first declared open war, and the sturdy colonists repeated the cry, and nerved themselves for the struggle. From this moment the Governor commonly went by the name of "Captain Crimp;" and the propriety of petitioning her Majesty for his removal from office was at once agitated.

At the same time, an official notice appeared warning persons not to settle or occupy the lands of Taranaki or Wanganui under land-orders from the New Zealand Company, as such had not been conveyed by the Crown. As it was confidently believed, however, that the next arrival would bring the news of a satisfactory arrangement in England of the Company's claims to those districts, no great attention was paid to this pro-

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hibition, issued by the New South Wales Government on the suggestion of Captain Hobson.

The news brought from the Northern Districts did not say much for the inducement held out to labourers to go thither from this settlement. The Bay of Islands Gazette had ceased to appear, having been threatened with punishment by legal proceedings in consequence of its free remarks upon the doings of Government; and the official Gazette Extraordinary now issued from the Church Mission press at Paihia.

The state of the Bay of Islands generally was described as very wretched, and the Lieutenant-Governor was blamed for having in great measure caused it by the establishment and then capricious abandonment of Russell. The whaling-ships, which had formed the principal support of that settlement, were driven away by the prospect of port-dues, and duties on their oil, tobacco, and spirits, as well as the augmented price of potatoes and pigs.

An impudent piece of official land-jobbing in the allotments of the town of Auckland had been discovered and exposed.

Instead of the whole of the land ready for sale at that place being put up on fair and equal terms to all bidders, Lieutenant Shortland and other Government officials had been allowed, ex officio, prior and exclusive selections. Of course, they had picked out some of the most valuable lots. But this was only the least part of the injustice. Instead of the price to be paid by the officials being determined by that given for other land of the same or nearly equal value, these fortunate gentlemen were to be allowed to purchase their lots at the average price of one-half of the town, good, bad, and indifferent; and, until the half should be sold and the average ascertained, they were to pay nothing.

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A short remonstrance to Sir George Gipps was drawn up on the subject by Mr. Dudley Sinclair, and signed by twenty-five leading settlers of Wellington. At the same time, a requisition for a public meeting to consider the misconduct of the Lieutenant-Governor was published, with the signatures of the most influential people of the settlement. I shall transcribe it word for word: --"We, the undersigned, land-holders and residents of Port Nicholson, viewing with surprise and disgust the nefarious attempt which is now being made by Captain Hobson to deprive us of our artificers and labourers, men brought out at our own expense for the benefit of the settlement of Port Nicholson; and feeling persuaded that her Majesty's Government at home will neither countenance such manifest injustice to ourselves nor sanction conduct so ungentlemanlike on the part of its officials; and being also fully convinced that any representations from us as a body will receive from her most gracious Majesty every possible consideration; do hereby call a meeting of our fellow colonists, to be holden at Barrett's hotel, on Monday next, the 15th day of February, for the purpose of adopting a petition, praying for the removal of Captain Hobson from the Deputy Government of New Zealand."

Curiously enough, at this very time Colonel Wakefield received from Sir John Franklin, the Governor of Van Diemen's Land, an answer to his complaint against the practices of the crimps, which condemned these proceedings as most disgraceful, and utterly repudiated them on the part of his Government. This letter must have been felt as a stinging reproof by the crimping Governor of Auckland.

On the 8th of February, the Brougham sailed finally

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for Taranaki, with sixty persons for the new settlement, including Dicky Barrett and all his train. He had long pined for his ancient residence in that part of the country; and was delighted to carry thither with him, as a boon to his native friends, the avant-garde of a large European population and market for their produce. The vessel was a perfect Noah's ark, bearing the germ of a colony; her decks were completely heaped up with furniture, animals, plants, and children.

On the 15th of February, an important meeting took place, pursuant to the requisition which I have transcribed above, at Barrett's hotel. Mr. George Butler Earp was voted into the chair. After his address, explanatory of the objects of the meeting, Captain Edward Daniell proposed three resolutions, as follows: --

"That Lieutenant-Governor Hobson has systematically neglected his duty to her Majesty's subjects settled at Port Nicholson.

"That his Excellency's recent attempt to deprive this settlement of its skilled labour, by inducing mechanics and artificers to leave it and enter into the employment of Government at Auckland, is calculated to inflict serious injury upon the settlement.

"That the annexed petition to the Queen be forwarded to England, and presented to her Majesty, stating the above-mentioned grievances, and praying her Majesty for protection, and the recall of the Lieutenant-Governor."

The petition alluded to briefly and plainly set forth the grievances of the petitioners, and concluded with a prayer for the removal of Lieutenant-Governor Hobson, and such other relief as to her Majesty might seem fit.

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This motion was seconded by Mr. James Coutts Crawford.

Mr. Hanson appeared at the head of a more moderate party, who doubted the expediency of demanding the recall of Captain Hobson. They considered this to be a very likely means of exciting the hostility of the Colonial Office. He read an address, in the form of a petition to both Houses of Parliament, which exposed the grievances at greater length, and prayed, indefinitely, for redress. He then moved for the adoption of this address as an amendment to the motion for the original petition. Some discussion ensued. The principal question at issue between the two parties was that of being guided by expediency and caution, or by an unflinching and open-mouthed denouncing of the enemy. Among such an assemblage, there could be but little doubt of the result, and the original motion was finally carried amidst acclamation.

The meeting concluded by carrying motions for the forwarding of the petition through Valparaiso to England, and for sending copies to Sir George Gipps and Lieutenant-Governor Hobson. Thus the supporters of the measure fell, through ignorance, into the error of neglecting a very stringent rule of the Colonial Office, which requires all complaints against a Governor to be forwarded through him, in order that they may be accompanied by his defence. There was some reason, in this case, for a deviation from the rule, as such a course seemed likely to involve a dangerous delay to the petition, both by the length of the voyage hence to Auckland, and by the absence of any means of conveyance homewards from that place. Moreover, the people of Wellington had, virtually, no Governor through whom to transmit their statements, but only a distant enemy to complain against. And, as there

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INCREASING TRADE WITH THE NATIVES.

was no commercial intercourse between Wellington and Auckland, it would have been necessary to charter a vessel on purpose to communicate with the Government. This, indeed, has been repeatedly the case in later times, when such communication has seemed so desirable to the Cook's Strait settlers or to the Company's Agent as to overcome the objection to such an enormous rate of postage.

The petition, numerously signed, was forwarded to Valparaiso by the Cuba, on the 2nd of March. Mr. Henry Petre was a passenger in this vessel, on his way to England; whence he proposed returning finally to the country which he had adopted, for he had perfectly satisfied himself as to its natural capabilities and its future prospects.

In the end of February, the Chelydra had sailed for Auckland, with the troops, and the crimped mechanics, who were allowed a free passage among other inducements. Mr. Dudley Sinclair, attracted by the prospect of speculation in town-lots at the proposed capital, left Wellington in this ship. He had parted with all his land and other property, and totally separated himself from the colonists, among whom he had come as a leading man. He openly avowed that he was only a land-jobber, and not a colonist.

A schooner, and the old cutter which had been lying so long idle off Barrett's house, had sailed for Wanganui, with some of the second-series sectionists and their goods.

The increasing trade which the natives maintained in the town began to draw attention. Mr. Lyon, one of the earliest Scotch colonists, kept a shop which was their favourite resort; and he had in his ledger upwards of sixty names of native customers, to whom he was not afraid to give credit to a certain extent. They

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now began to understand the use of money. Bringing their produce into town from all the neighbouring settlements, and even occasionally from a great distance, they would only take money in exchange; though they commonly spent it during the same day, at some of the shops along the beach.

The workmen now founded a very useful association among themselves. Looking to the increasing value of land, both in the town and the neighbouring country districts, they wisely formed a kind of savings bank, which applied the surplus of their high wages to the purchase of desirable lots. By this combination of their funds they secured the advantage of entering the land-market with a considerable capital, and the land acquired was afterwards distributed in lots proportionate to the amount of the subscription. As a means of attaching the working population to the locality by making them all owners of the soil, the "Working Men's Land Association" received the cordial support and approval of the employing class.

On the 3rd of March, her Majesty's ship Favourite again entered the harbour, having Lady Franklin, the wife of the Governor of Van Diemen's Land, and her suite, as passengers. This lady had recently visited South Australia, Port Philip, and Sydney, and was now completing her tour of the Australasian colonies by a visit to the different settlements in New Zealand. Lady Franklin resided, during her short stay here, in the house of Colonel Wakefield, which was by this time fitted up with some degree of comfort. She also made a trip to see the farms on the Hutt. Before her departure, a congratulatory address was presented to her ladyship by a deputation from the settlers, which alluded to the friendly feeling displayed towards them by Sir John, and to her own literary and scientific

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acquirements. On the 9th, the Favourite carried this welcome visitor to Akaroa, whence she was to proceed to the Thames and the Bay of Islands. The sloop had made the passage from Hobart Town to this port in ten days.